


Certain Trust

by Yincira



Series: Astral Corridors [1]
Category: Slayers (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Angst, Demons, Dragons, Drama, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Family, Friendship, Gen, Gods, Mind Manipulation, Mother-Son Relationship, Motherhood, Psychological Trauma, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Unhealthy Relationships, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-02
Updated: 2017-01-04
Packaged: 2017-12-22 04:20:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 48
Words: 412,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/908852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yincira/pseuds/Yincira
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is a Lina shaped gap in the universe, and the only person who knows why is too busy tying back together her unraveling plot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Val's Feathers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story follows anime continuity, but may incorporate some info from novels or interviews whenever it's useful.
> 
> Mazoku are referred to as devils to avoid confusion with non-astral creatures also called demon, such as Zannafar and Blow Demons.
> 
> Mazoku normally cannot teleport, they just stop projecting onto the physical plane. They can't take physical matter along to the astral plane, so some of the stronger ones warp space instead; as explained by Kanzaka in an interview. It seems to apply to the anime as well, and fits, so I'm using that. Animeverse Xelloss is depicted as being limited to what he can touch and carry when warping space, but at Evo-R's end brings along a whole group. Unlike his regular warping, this is accompanied by a gold glow, like Filia's teleportation; assume for this fic that Filia taught him this.

Certain pain is necessary for the world to keep turning, so cats must hunt and birds must die. He understood this, but right now he didn't care much for it.

Val grabbed the nearest vase and hurled it at the cat in the doorway. The hunter shot out the way she'd come on, leaving behind her prey : a limp white dove splattered red.

He carefully lifted the bird, hoping to save her and knowing it was in vain. He could feel the warmth of life slip away. This had been his favorite bird, raised by himself, the one who always returned with fun stories to tell. Holding her close he sat down, mindless of the shards.

A sound behind him drew his attention, different from the city ruckus outside. In the storage room door stood a blur of white, pink and yellow, his mother. He brought one hand to his eyes to wipe the tears away. When he could see clearer, his mother had crossed the room already.

"Oh, Val." She knelt down and brushed her hand across his head, her other gently pulling him to his feet. Her tail flicked a few of the shards away from around him.

"Val, I know you cared for that bird, but the cat already had brought her to you, right? There was no need to try and hurt him."

Still looking at the bloodied white feathers, he muttered, "I was just angry. Why do we need to have that cat anyway?"

Her tone wasn't harsh, but he felt reprimanded anyway when she outlined, once again, why. The cat kept the rats away, which could carry diseases and took their food, and he gave friendly company. His mother loved that cat, despite its sometimes vicious nature.

"But she hurts the birds."

"Would you like it if because of the cat, I'd forbid you to feed the birds?"

He quickly shook his head.

"Would getting rid of this one cat really save the birds?"

Off course it wouldn't, the cat would just hunt with its new owner. Still ...

"We could lock up the cat!"

"Val, we run a shop. It's impossible to keep all doors closed at all times. Besides, some cats are too wild to be kept indoors, ours is one of them."

He pressed his lips together and would have covered his ears if he could. He didn't want to hear this again.

"I love the birds too, off course," she said gently. "But this is just the way nature is and we can't change that."

She laid a hand on the bird's wing, which hung over Val's arm. "Would you like to bury the bird?"

He nodded stiffly.

"Let me finish up in the back, alright? You go ask miss Elena to find a box."

Val did so and after a little half hour, he and his mother were on their way to the city's edge.

Since the cannon factories had been opened, they had been able to afford bigger houses than before, but nevertheless their current house was in the city and there was no room for gardens. This was why his mother had bought an allotment garden on the outskirts, near the lake. He could always feed the ducks, there.

The burial was a silent thing. They chose a small corner of the garden, shadowed by a jasmine. Val would have liked his siblings to be there, since Palu and Molly had helped him raise the bird. They were at school, however. He didn't go there anymore after the second time he'd accidentally hurt someone.

The prayer that his mother spoke was one she had learned long ago, when she had still served at the temple. Val had once asked her why she kept their words if her back was on the holy order, she had told him that gods and their followers were not one and the same. A few alterations to the verse indicated this, she no longer spoke of disciples.

At the end, he placed the earth atop the bird with his bare hands, after which his mother went around the yard to choose flowers with a meaning. He'd forgotten their meaning, but didn't want to say so as she laid them down. For his own gift, Val grew out some feathers on his back, and pulled one out. He winced at the sting, but retained silence.

This ritual done, his mother let go of a deep breath.

"Would you like to return home now?"

He shook his head. "Gotta feed the ducks."

"I thought so," she said with a warm smile. From her little pocket dimension, she conjured up a sack of celery, peas and other vegetables. He accepted it, and ran off.

The lake lay at the end of the garden, barely visible through the thick reed. He had a small spot where he could climb on a tree root to sit in the middle of the swaying stems, for which he took his shoes off. Splashing his toes into the water was the way to call the birds.

The mild quarreling and splashing took his mind off of the dove a little. He loved watched birds because they were the only creatures truly like him. Wings like his own, feathers they didn't have to hide. He especially liked birds with colorful feathers, like peasants, but they were too shy to approach in the wild. Where they had lived before, he had kept a den with them, but had set them free. They were more beautiful that way.

Val was born a dragon the size of a kitten and had spent the first few years of his life in his true form. His family was wont to tell those who saw him by chance that he was a black salamander bird chimera, up until he by accident had spoken to a customer, and then there had been rumors of sorcery that turn children into pets. They had moved not long after that.

Now Val lived a life as a human, ever careful to conceal his true self. He had special clothing for accidental transformations and knew the cues that might trigger an accident. It wasn't bad living this way, but it didn't really feel like himself. Often he wondered what it would be to have been born a bird. Not with birds, because then he would not have his family. But if he'd been a real bird, not a hated dragon, they would have less trouble.

There'd be a lot he would miss, though. Talking, playing, cities, opposable thumbs, even school. Would he even be the same person at all, if he had led such a different life? His experience would have been so different if he'd been a bird only. Luna had chided him once for desiring anything but what he had for that reason. He had always thought she was wrong, Val was Val, but today he truly reconsidered for the first time.

If he had been a bird, he might have been the one to die today.

So caught up in his thoughts, he didn't realize the footsteps approaching him were too light until the bushes parted. He stopped in the middle of turning and about to speak as he saw the stranger.

The man had long blond hair and golden eyes that looked down on him without saying much of anything. He smelled familiar, though Val couldn't recall ever meeting him before.

"What's your name, boy?"

"I'm not supposed to talk to strangers," he muttered. His mother encouraged politeness and there was no harm in giving names, but she had also told him that if he felt a situation was unpleasant, politeness wasn't required at all.

This man's face didn't move enough. If his mother had invited him into the garden, why was she not here to introduce him?

"Who are you?" he asked, slowly climbing to his feet. A memory he couldn't hold onto left a warning in his waking mind.

"Asnotkar, vassal of lord Gurionis, chosen leader of Windlord Valwin," he said. As he approached, he passed below sun rays. No, that was not blond hair, but golden.

Before him stood a golden dragon, one as his mother, but who might very well be an enemy.

Val kicked off his shoes off and growled. The ducks scattered, but the dragon remained stoic.

"Val, to the sky!" his mother screamed from far away. He barely heard it, but he obeyed without second thought. Going from human to dragon took no spell, so he pushed out his wings from below his jacket and tore loose his belt.

When mom told him this, it meant the people chasing him were not humans, and he couldn't outrun them. In full dragon form, no larger than a shepherd dog, he sped across the the water.

A narrow white flash grazed his tail, costing him a few feathers. He squeaked, fear threatening to paralyze him. His mother had demonstrated what laserbreath did, he knew exactly what would happen if he was hit. His best chance was the forest, where he could hide.

This time he recognized the sound that came before the laser and he swung aside just in time. Almost across the lake now.

He crashed through the reed, lost sense of direction and so collided into the muddy banks. Another white ray burned a hole through the reed right overhead. This time he did freeze, realizing he would have been hit if he'd gotten ahead earlier. Yet somehow, it didn't feel like the first time he'd been close to death.

The blast hit a tree, burning part out of it. The top started to fall and Val's instincts kicked in again. He scrambled out of the way, just in time. With a loud splash the tree landed in the water while Val disappeared into the undergrowth.

Where did he go to now? It would be no use if he beelined for a hiding place only to be spotted entering it.

A small white feather drifted into his path. Instead of landing, it fluffed away on a breeze that Val did not feel. Almost he ignored it, but a sharp impulse made him follow.

The feather led him down a wild path he only vaguely knew. Behind him, leathery wings grew louder in the wind. Soon the dragon would be over him. Just then, the feather fell into a rabbit hole, and he dove after it. Above a golden dragon shot over, never seeing him.

Val breathed in deeply, out again, in again, and waited.

When the golden dragon couldn't be heard anymore, another white feather darted past the hole's opening. He went after it at once.

Down the road the feathers created for him, the forest turned denser. He still could fly, small as he was, but did not need to hide anymore as they flew overhead. Yet, the speed of his strange guide did not let up. Soon he realized why : there were the footsteps of a running man behind him.

How? Oh, right, he'd left a trail of footprints and broken branches. They human shaped one could follow him so easily.

The feather suddenly made a sharp turn and led him into a wide meadow. A crawling sensation went up his spine, but he did not hesitate.

He should have, at least a little. When he burst from the undergrowth, he collided head first with a pair of legs in baggy black pants. A red and yellow patch told him who it was before he even looked up.

"Oh my, you seem to have reached a whole new level of problem, Val."

Evil Wizard Cone Person Thingy, also known as Wet Trash, Cockroach, Sewer Priest, Go Away and sometimes Xelloss. Mom would be angry he was lurking around, but Val knew him as safe right now. Quickly, he crept behind the devil's legs and under the cloak.

Shadows crossed the sun and trees creaked under the weight of two golden dragons. Their claws curled around branches and stems, their faces unreadable, but by instincts he recognized signs of the hunt : slightly raised tails, the way the wings were flared sideways.

A third dragon appeared from the undergrowth, the same as before and still in human form. Asnotkar still looked eerily lifeless, but not so frightening anymore now that Xelloss was her. Val knew Xelloss was stronger than most things he might encounter in this world.

"What is a devil doing here?" Asnotkar asked. He did not use human language, but the growls and rumbles of dragon language. His mother had learned him this in case he'd ever be in trouble with them. He'd always thought she was pessimistic, now to think she'd been _optimistic_ when assuming he'd live to talk.

"Doesn't matter," one in the trees said. "We can't let him have an ancient dragon alive. They'll surely find a terrible way to utilize those violent creatures."

"Such big words over such a small dragon cub," Xelloss said. "You are not of the fire nomads, am I correct? Are you wind or earth alligned?"

Asnotkar said with pure contempt, "What would it matter to _you_? The fact that I can transform as I do should cause you to be alert, and I'll—"

"The fact that I'm not fearful in the slightest should be a warning to you just as much. I am curious now, how come a high ranked dragons such as yourself is wandering around in the human backwaters, at the edge of a desolate land?"

"I could ask you the same."

"Hmm, clearly this conversation will not go anywhere, don't you agree, Val?" Xelloss looked down, or feigned doing so. Val could never figure out when his eyes were closed or just narrowed. Maybe he didn't even need eyes to see.

"Yes," he squeaked, putting stubby forearms around Xelloss' leg. "Can we go to mom now?"

"Off course."

Xelloss just twirled his finger and never stopped smiling as the top two dragons exploded into a gory mess. The bits burned up before even hitting the ground.

Asnotkar was stunned for all of three seconds before he turned to run, but a wall of tiny black cones got in the way. He froze, turning back again.

"Who are you?"

"I'm afraid that today, that is a secret. Wouldn't want you to get chatty in the afterlife, you see. You are free to take a few guesses, though. I can't do much about that."

Jillas and Gravos had told him devils feed on bad feelings, that likely was why Xelloss didn't just kill him. Asnotkar had to be scared and Val almost felt sorry for him. Almost. If he hadn't tried to kill him.

What if that dragon already killed his mother?

"Xelloss, we gotta go to mom."

"Ah well, I suppose I'll cut this short."

Asnotkar spasm then, and a small cone slowly bore out of his stomach. Others broke the skin on his arms, one out of his eye, and he could not scream because his throat was nothing but thin black cones. With a snap of his fingers, blue fire broke from the cones.

Death felt like an old familiar thing to Val, he didn't understand why.

When the last bits of blue fire had leaked away, Val crawled out from behind Xelloss's legs and looked up. Xelloss smiled, as he always did.

"Thank you, can we go to mom now, please?"

"Give me a moment to scry for any magic items she might carry."

"She wore her diadem today."

"That'll do."

"What did they mean with that they can't let you have me alive?"

"Oh, didn't miss Filia tell you? The devil council was once rather interested in having an ancient dragon on their side. These dragons believed I had come to abduct you and turn you into a chimera, no doubt. Off course, that idea relies on devils beyond the beast court knowing you exist."

"That's stupid, I'm not a bad person so I'd never work for them. Mom thinks you're going to take me away anyway."

"Tss, tss. What the devil lords as a whole want doesn't quite line up with my lord's interests. Miss Filia should know that a secret I keep is well kept." He leaned down and lightly laid a hand on his head, and the world glowed golden.

The scenery shifted before he fully noticed the change. Instead of a breaking corpse before him, there were the torn edges of his mother's white cloak.

She stood with her back to them as she peered around a tree, but off course no devil could be so close without her noticing. Xelloss had given up trying to sneak up years ago. Wide eyed she turned around and was about to speak, then she noticed Val.

She smelled of her own blood, but before he could ask, she'd lifted him. Cradled in her arms, he pushed his crest against her cheek softly. He was safe now, warm all around.

"Mom, why don't you heal? We're safe now."

"Sssshh! They're still there," she whispered. "We've got to—"

With another golden glow, the forest was replaced by the warm glow of the hearth.

"... hide ... " His mother trailed off as she realized they were home.

Her frantic heartbeat slow down, but she remained tense and held onto him. Xelloss flickered out of view again, this time without glow. Xelloss could not take Val along with his space warping technique, but he could teleport him by using his mother's technique, should he have a reserve of holy energy for it. He must have met her before finding him.

Now he was gone, his mother let out a breath. She didn't seem relieved, however. Still holding him with both arms, she pulled out a table chair with her tail and carefully set him down. Then she briskly stepped to the windows and jerked the curtains shut. The tiny garden was full with high dense shrubs, ensuring passerby's weren't likely to see anything incriminating, but she never felt entirely safe.

"I'll go get you some new clothes, Val," she said while draping a towel over him.

"It's okay, I'll stay like this for a while."

"Ah ah, there will be ice cream, you'll need hands." She always used this when persuaded him to transform into human shape. It worked, too. Ice cream was tough to eat as a dragon, thanks to the lack of proper lips. Nonetheless, every time Val wished he wouldn't need to hide.

While his mother went to find Elena, Val curled into the towel and tried reciting the spell to transform into a human. It wasn't easy, it never was. There was no pain in transformation with holy magic, but all too often Val lost touch with the magic halfway through and he had to start again. Xelloss said he was magically unstable, which was why he wouldn't risk warping space around him.

Elena returned alongside his mother, carrying a new set of clothing for him. By then, he had just barely managed to appear human again. Grumbling, he pulled the clothes under the towel and started to change.

"Val, Molly will be home from school in an hour or so," his mother said. "Will you tell us what happened now, before she arrives?"

Val nodded. Molly was the child of Elena and Jillas, they'd decided to raise her as happily as they could. This meant minimal warnings about dangerous dragons, lots of vague rules about talking to strangers, and no word about death and gore. Until today, that last rule hadn't needed to be minded.

His story of what happened started with ducks and ended with Cone Thingies. The death of the dragons caused them a lot of uncomfortable looks, even though Val didn't go into detail. What caught their attention the most, though, was the feathers. Elena speculated a forest spirit had been helping out, but his mother shook her head and pulled her out of the room. They went into the fridge and whispered to one another there. Val tried to listen.

"... at when he was reb ..."

Val didn't know how he was a reb, but his mother didn't seem at all eager to talk about it. Maybe a rebel? Hm, that did fit, Palu was called rebellious by Jillas during his so called teen phase, which was now, and Palu said his mother was rebelling against her own kind by raising him. Maybe that made him a perpetual rebel, because they didn't want him to be alive?

When they returned and his mother had set down a bowl of icecream before him, he asked, "What were you talking about?"

"Ehm ... Val, you really ought to reconsider calling him Cone Thingy. He might get angry. Today you have seen what he can do, does that not frighten you?" Elena said as she sat down besides him.

Val shook his head. "No, he doesn't mind and he's not scary."

Evil Wizard Cone Person Thingy was Val's personal use because he didn't always feel angry at him, but he couldn't call him a devil in front of other people, and he wanted to follow his mother with her nickname tradition. He'd developed his own after deep thought and it made his mother smile, so he kept doing it.

She hadn't smiled today, curiously. As his mother started making tea, her movements were tense and stiff, unlike the grace she usually had. She had to still be scared.

"Mommy, what's wrong?"

Elena sighed, her snout dipping low.

"Elena, what's wrong with mom? Are you sad too?"

His mother sobbed once, restrained, then she laid her hand over her face.

"There are more dragons," she whispered. "They were here with a whole scouting party, twelve in total. He'll kill them all."

"But they're threatening us! We didn't do anything wrong, so they are wrong. I don't care if he kills them!"

"That doesn't mean they deserve death, Val! They might have families who will miss them, just like I would miss you. Now, they don't even have a chance to learn you are no threat. Killing others should be a last resort only."

"Isn't he doing that? They know we exist now, so he can't let them go, right?"

"We can just go live elsewhere, nobody needs to die. Xelloss doesn't need to do this. He's so powerful, he could just do something else."

"But the golden dragons can talk to us and already live elsewhere, and they try to hurt us anyway."

His mother sighed. "You'll understand when you're older that the world isn't so simple."

"But when the cat kills, you are okay with it?"

"Cats don't have higher reasoning, Val. It's not the same."

"What if it was the last dove?"

She stayed silent so long the kettle started blowing. Absently, she took it off the fire and said, "Then we'd send the cat after other food."

"But without other doves, there wouldn't be more doves in the future anyway," he snapped, balling his fists.

"You're not that alone, and I would not let you die either way. Please don't try to draw a parallel here, it won't do."

"Don't we count, Val?" Elena asked. "Just because we think the others deserve to live doesn't mean we'd sacrifice you."

"Off course you count."

He pulled up his knees and locked his arms around them. There was an itch in his left hand, begging to transform and slash something. When the spoon in his hand started to bend, he jammed it in the ice cream.

"So what _is_ Xelloss, if he's not a cat?"

"Xelloss is something that can _feed_ on _us_. That's why he's here so often, and I can only hope that's all it is," his mother said. "Speaking of food ... I better go prepare dinner. Gravos is probably going to eat another hole in the supplies once he's back."

Val finished his ice cream, while Elena joined his mother to make dinner. Soon the air filled with the scent of stew, and the forced idle chatter of the two ladies.

Cone Thingy was a devil his mother had met on a mission to save the world seven years ago, the same mission where she had found his egg. Everyone else insisted he was dangerous, but he, Palu and Molly had a hard time believing it when he was so silly. Sometimes he and Xelloss played, or Xelloss would ask him about his dreams and have him make drawings of things he saw there, or they'd play a trick on some obnoxious people.

He had always thought Xelloss really meant well, and it was just all teasing when he bugged his mother. Only last year he had learned it was not so easy for his mother. When his mother had received a strange letter from her about a 'long quest' and then no more news, she'd become worried. The timing of Lina's disappearance was too coincidental, too short after her defeat of a third piece of Shabranigdu. His mother's divination attempts all failed, and she'd began to fear Lina was dead or worse. Once day, she had broken down in tears while trying to get Xelloss to talk.

Xelloss had just kept smiling and said he had no idea, waving off her worries like a triviality. He suggested Lina had installed an anti-scrying shield and might have forgotten her, or Lina might indeed have died gruesomely, or perhaps she was simply far away at a place without postal office, like a stranded island. She had later told him that Xelloss didn't offer comfort because this was how devils fed, and the only reason he didn't make a habit of making her miserable was because his favorite taste was irritation, not sorrow and fear.

Val couldn't even imagine how one could eat emotions like it was ice cream, so he didn't really know what that made Xelloss. Cats that ate birds killed the bird, but no real harm came from Xelloss eating emotions. Except, off course, when he _caused_ bad emotions.

He probably was eating fancy right now.

Even if he could be nasty like that, Xelloss was nicer than the golden dragons his mother always warned him about and today just proved that. Val wondered whether he'd care more if those dragons had looked like himself. The thought of any of his family dying that way horrified him, but he couldn't supplant the strangers with them.

He was licking out his ice cream bowl by the time Xelloss blinked into the kitchen chair opposite of him. As always, he smiled pleasantly. Not the face of a murderer.

"Is there any tea, miss Filia?"

Normally she would have told him to conjure his own tea. Not today. Without a word or even a second glance, his mother poured Xelloss a cup and shoved it across the table. She didn't sit down herself, just stood there with her arms crossed.

"Such poor manners again," Xelloss said with a sigh.

"Someone who refuses to use the door is in no position to complain about manners."

Xelloss never knocked. He said it would be useless, houses did not exist on the astral plane anyway. Val often had heard rants about trespassing being illegal, and people who didn't respect private space being bad news. Val wasn't really sure what side to pick, cause he often thought Xelloss's visits were fun.

"You did not seem so averse to my astral endeavors when you sent me for your son, miss Filia."

"That's different. Now out with it. I presume you know something, considering your timing?"

"As a matter of fact, I do. Lately, the western dragons have been sending delegations to the east for matters we have yet to discern, I was in this area to keep an eye on them. My most recent encounters were no more talkative than any of the previous ones, I'm afraid."

"Would it have anything to do with Val?" Elena asked. "They were intent to kill him, right?"

"The western dragons are much like the eastern ones, they subscribe to the popular notion that the ancient dragons were some secluded and violent tribe. However, I believe they might have tried to merely injure him for capture, at least at first. When they finally noticed me, I found their bloodlust to him as quite fresh. I must warn you that there likely was a dragon diviner amongst the group, so others of their flock may have heard word. Should they confront you about Val, miss Filia, you would do well to blame miss Lina Inverse for his presence. Wouldn't want them to know you're conspiring with a devil."

"I'm not conspiring with a devil! It was your decision alone to keep this secret, I never asked you."

"Actually, that was a decision I made that was retroactively approved by my liege the Beast Monarch."

"Besides, Lina isn't—"

"They don't know that, and if not even I can find her, they certainly can't do so to verify it. Not that it mattered if they did, surely miss Lina would play along. For a price."

"Hmmph. Maybe you simply aren't so good at scrying, sewer priest."

The familiar twitch of eyebrows appeared on Xelloss. At this point, they'd be verbally sparring on a good bad day, but it was no surprise that for once, Xelloss let it go.

"You know, it was because of you that they came," he said, conjuring up a crystal ball. "They've been scrying for dragon magical items in this area, judging from the magic signs on this."

"That could mean anything."

"I asked both the first and the second group. They gave identical answers that included your name, so I'm inclined to believe them."

His mother away at once. She started cleaning the stove, though there was nothing to clean.

"Second group?"

"They had reinforcements, who I took the liberty to question a bit. They said nothing of their overall mission, unfortunately. Apparently finding you was a side quest, as they were not lip locked over it."

"Why would they even talk to you?" Val asked. "I don't chat with people I don't like."

"Well, normally the talking happens before the fighting, but during or after is just as viable. In fact, _after_ works best when the enemy has been brought down and can be persuaded at ease."

Val needed a moment to realize it meant he had tortured them.

"That's too cruel," Val said, but perhaps he could have been harsher about it. Well, at least his mother was be glad to hear he didn't like torture.

"I suppose we have that in common then, mister Vase The Cat Over A Dying Bird," Xelloss said, nodding at the door. There were still some shards and drops there, Xelloss probably could see the cat hairs too.

"That was just ... I didn't think, okay?"

"How do you know you're not just like this, young as you are? You might turn out to be someone who enjoys hurting others just to satisfy your own emotions," Xelloss said, one eerie eye open.

A loud clang startled Val and Elena. His mother had slammed down a pot on the sink. "Xelloss, don't ... "

Val and Elena sensed it was time to leave. As he turned to climb off the chair, he noticed her tail had appeared and was trembling a little. He could have sworn she looked afraid in the split second she looked over her shoulder.

At this, Val sank back into his seat. It wasn't that he didn't know his mother could be afraid, but it usually was when talking about the past of her clan. His people were the ancient dragons and they had been killed a long time ago by evil golden dragons. He had been revived through a miracle and placed in the care of Filia, last of her own clan. He had always thought they'd been bad to her too, because she was so different.

"Why are you afraid now?" he asked quietly. It couldn't be of Xelloss, she never was afraid of him. The fire dragon clan hadn't been mentioned either.

"I .. Val, it's ..."

"A secret," Xelloss said, raising a finger before his lips. "Miss Filia will tell you when she feels you are ready."

For once, his mother didn't object to him saying that. Weird.

"Val, why don't you go ask miss Katrina whether she'd still like to have our cat?"

His eyes widened, he knew what that meant. It was sealed, then.

"We're really leaving?"

"We should be prepared for it. If miss Katrina doesn't want her, we'll find someone else. Taking her on such a long journey is too traumatizing. Maybe Molly knows someone at school ... now where did I put that ..."

"Isn't it awfully premature to plan for leaving, miss Filia? And here I thought you actually meant it when you spoke of the value of a home. Flighty, I suppose."

"No. Not this again, Xelloss. This isn't a joke. Those dragons will be noticed by the people in the surrounding gardens and there's a crater where my garden used to be. I'm being cautious about dragon-hating towns," she sneered. " _You_ would know why."

He just sipped his tea, while his eyebrows twitch. "At least you learned from it."

"I could have learned that in a less destructive way."

"Reality demands a mixture of high ideals and striving for results," he said. "You know your role and I know mine, miss Filia. Let's keep things simple and act in our own methods, shall we?"

Xelloss said that a lot and Val had never understood it.


	2. Zelas's Manifesto

**· · · · · · ·**

The unexpected always found a way to happen in this world. Particularly, it was the kind of unexpected that required extraneous actions to counter it, but with some effort it could be swung to her benefit. That was why Zelas herself was hunting dead dragons today.

Twelve little candlestick dragons, dancing down Megiddo. Deeper down they went on the currents of the world's flow, which brought all to the sea known as Hell. Should any devil ask, she tried her luck with the dead when the living would not speak.

Megiddo was the nexus that connected the world of the living to the world of the dead, working as a whirlpool to both sides. It sucked souls with a mind, and slung out those who had lost their identity to astral erosion. For all the power that Fibrizo had possessed, for all the might of Shabranigdu himself, they could not control the ebb and tide that Megiddo created on the flow of souls. It had no astral side, it existed beyond the astral side, it could not be touched or commanded. Theories and rumors amongst weary devils told Megiddo was lying within the staff of the worlds.

To the astral world, it stood below as an blue star on the dark red firmament. Even the most idiotic navigators could find their way by it. More troublesome for movement was the stream of souls, whose astral side shone a bright blue. In many places small threads flowed to the star, converging into a thin pillar below it. The closer an astral being came to a wide river, the easier they were blinded. To go amidst the pillar meant all loss of orientation, for a devil could only break the flow, not feel it deep enough to travel on it.

Lately Zelas had a need to pass Megiddo, so she had created a chimera of devil and wolf : a large silver wolf striped as a tiger with white and wings as a dragon. If she contracted her projection into a small enough human form, using plasma instead of matter, she could hold onto this chimera. He would pull her along across the astral plane, riding the flow for her.

Even so, they were slower than the average soul, let alone a dragon. Her prey was gaining ground without even having realized she was there, but Zelas was confident she would catch them on the other side. At this point, she was at the mercy of her chimera. Should it decide to throw her off, she could be lost here for a very long time, long enough without direction and sensation to lose some of her sanity. He would never throw her off though, Zelas was excellent at forging loyalty.

With something all too much resembling a pop into a void, the souls fell into the first expanses of Hell. Where previously they had been a diverse buffet, now their dim veil of miasma turned to wonder, disappointment, disillusionment and curiosity. See, the other end of Megiddo was all too similar to entrance. Clouds of rocks whirled around here as much on the other side, one could still see the pillar on the other side through the gaps. In fact, if one were head in the opposite direction of the flow, the one that returned souls to the living world, it would look almost exactly the same, only inversed. A pillar on this side, an unfolding flower on the other side.

The only difference between here and there was the lack of flower movement. Hell had no true exodus, it was merely a confused refugee camp. Not even a sign to anyone where to go or what would follow, let alone how they would ever find their family and loved ones. Clusters of souls hung around, trying to find consolation and guidance with one another. Many would wait for a long time before choosing any of the rivers that led further into Hell. Zelas was sorely tempted to linger and feed, but alas. She circled her mount higher to get a better view.

Since the last time, the thickest of the blue rivers had curled a little more inward and the dark hollow where Fibrizo had carved out a river in the red had contracted a little more. Ha! Five thousand years and never had he dented the walls of the worlds, let alone Megiddo itself. A few decades and it would be healed.

It was through Megiddo that the gods had believed they could chip away at Shabranigdu's mind. A tell tale sign of their naivety : merely taking away mental space did not mean the end of the ideas living in that space. By grace of their astral bodies, Shabranigdu and Garv had retained their personality where their hosts were scrubbed into blank slates. Yet they were able to do so only by integrating a part of their body into the soul. Garv had gone too far and become a true chimera, but even Shabranigdu was tainted by the souls to the point the host could influence them.

That had been Fibrizo's original reason to risk himself in finding Shabranigdu. He had believed he could intercept the fragments by controlling hell. Megiddo had been a pesky maze to him, not the power it ought to be respected as. Granted, the maze thing was a fitting description. Zelas had just spotted her prey, but they were in a different river than the one her mount was currently above. They'd have to cross the flow, and quickly. Once the dragons were further down Hell, they could access any old vision nexus and contact their tribe and then wham, Vrabazard or Valwin would know too much.

Zelas commanded her mount to jump from one soul cluster to another. This action caused them to scatter, and in no time her prey spotted her. With her astral form being colored so brightly and being so massive, she stood out like a sore thumb to any dragon that was skilled enough to see the astral side. The twelve formed a loose flock, but did not stick together. Those few most magically potent went ahead in the flew.

She drummed her wolf on the shoulder with slim fingers, he purred in response to her code. They would hunt the faster ones first, then corner the weaker. In addition to its purpose, the emotions would run up in their prey as they realized just how weak they were.

One hand was all she needed, her swords remained immaterial. Five thin light wires shot from her nails, tauntingly brushed across a dragon they passed, but aimed firmly at the one leader ahead. It touched none of the other souls on the way, but when her power reached the dragon, it wrapped firmly around its tail and crept up to the wings. The dragon cried out as its soul was encased by Zelas's magic, its astral form fragmenting under her power. A small snack for her, which she would repeat eleven times more.

Each soul she forced into the form of a small golden ball, a technique she had Xelloss raid from Fibrizo's remaining magic. It was an imperfect imitation, but it would do. They remained aware of their surroundings, so Zelas glowered over them as she rode deeper into Hell. There was a list of typical but mind breaking one liners she could say, she her her projection recite them as they went along. There wasn't any concrete hunger to still, Zelas got plenty on the way here, but she was being practical by building reserves. A trip to Megiddo _always_ was filling because so few liked to die.

Given the drama physical creatures made about dying, you'd think they ceased existing. Zelas supposed they couldn't help it. The very foundation of a soul was the instinct to live. Even the souls that had a good reason to stay in Hell, they'd be pulled to _live_ the more their identity eroded, and this erosion was not something souls were hardwired to prevent or even be aware of. Many would eventually throw themselves into Megiddo.

Underlying this system was the principle of balance. Zelas respected this, but not those subject to it. There was a separate balance for her own kind, and those that did not evolve meant nothing to her beyond being of use, or already used. Honestly, most beings _knew_ they would die and end up in hell, yet they'd fight for a few more years of hardship anyway. This was particularly inexcusible of they were those who believed a paradise awaited them. Zelas almost felt petty enough to call them spoiled. They didn't _need_ to end with the destruction of their body, if they worked to stay themselves. When an astral creature died, they were gone. At best, chopped off parts of them would become new creatures, perhaps even similar ones, but the original identity was nothing anymore.

And then there were those lucky few that had become chimera.

"Zelas, what are you doing?" A cold voice, the start of the sentence farther away than the end. She was always so fast.

Zelas bothered to place a smile on her face as she turned to the angel, a radiant human-astral chimera with white hair, whose stoic demeanor made a strange contrast to her gently colored robes and feathered wings.

"Miss Milina, how early you are. My apologies for the disruption, I'm afraid there's been a broken dam," she purred, holding up the captured souls. "Be so kind as to lead me to your lord."

Milina narrowed her eyes slightly, then nodded.

"I presume you'll want to have a look the other two now?"

"Oh, is it obvious?"

"I'll let Lezo know once I brought you to Rangort. Follow me."

No more words wasted, Milina spun around and flew down an unpopulated stream, followed by Zelas.

Shabranigdu's hosts had been the reason Fibrizo had bothered with the afterlife in the first place, but he had never harvested much from that effort. The souls carrying the pieces of Shabranigdu, Ragradia and Siephied all cycled right out of the afterlife the moment they met Fibrizo. With their mortal souls in control and great power at disposal, Fibrizo's efforts to stop them often were in vain. It was as easy for them with just kick him off and fall into Megiddo's pull.

 _Often_.

Her priest had snooped around hell a little when given the chance to visit the erstwhile Hellmaster and made an interesting discovery : Fibrizo _had_ managed to detain two pieces. Unfortunately Zelas had not met them, but dead dragons were an excellent excuse to meet with Rangort, the new Hellmaster.

Incidentally, Earthlord Rangort had gotten a tip about the oncoming power vacuum, allowing hir to take it before anyone else.

Incidentally, Rangort was the one to suggest that yes, perhaps for that desperate time of otherworldly invasion by Dugradigdu, the gods can do something like include a devil in the counter prophecy.

Incidentally, Rangort was not entirely inclined to attack Zelas on first sight.

Incidentally, Rangort had taken custody of those two souls.

However, just because this particular god understood that listening to Zelas could have benefits did not mean there was any trust. Zelas was not allowed to roam Hell without any escort, so beyond Megiddo she was expected to be in the company of an angel at least. Usually this was Milina, as she best best accustomed to the disruptive energy of devils.

Fibrizo had turned Hell to crystals and marbles, intent to mock the souls within by painting their torture chamber so beautifully. With his power gone, Rangort had adopted the crystals as they match hir's earthly themes, the blank spaces and torture plains were filled with gray earth.

Milina deftly wove across the landscape, forsaking full speed so the devils keep up. It was easier moving and seeing here than near the center of Megiddo, but she still had difficulty keeping up with an angel in a god's domain.

And how much of a god's domain it had become. Fibrizo was powerful, but not nearly omniscient and omnipotent enough that he could turn all of hell to misery. There were simply too many souls, but they had all existed in fear for him. The inhabitant's best hope was a featureless area to build a new society in, usually with strangers, and hope they did not draw the attention of Fibrizo or any of his lesser devils. Their greatest enemy : trying to figure out how to exist without notice of Fibrizo, how to return to Megiddo, how to cope with the shattering of all of their beliefs.

In his absence, communities had begun to flourish. Like ants on an anthill, they dug into the twisted earth to carve out towers and palaces. The trees were growing with diverse fruit than merely apples and fountains with the simulation of water had risen near them. Clergymen and priests no longer were broken, she saw several of them amidst the groups to preach a new creed.

Zelas was mildly amused, but mostly annoyed with what she heard. Service to Rangort had become the new holiness, they spoke with greater purpose than what drove the simple minded god. How they'd break if they truly understood what astral beings were like; forces without social needs like law, morality and ethics, sometimes even without solid personality. All those things they valued so much were trivial to many devils and gods alike. Zelas would like to find a really religious person who she personally make this understand, just to taste the results (according to Xelloss, broken dragon faith was an absolute delicacy). But who that believed they knew the gods would believe a devil?

"Why does Rangort bother?" Zelas asked, nodding at another community. "With them. E is doing more than just guarding the pieces."

"For now, e gains some miasma, but e still feeds on the flow of the living world. Perhaps it matters to hir after all whether people are alright. Ragradia had some care, did she not?"

"There is very little to care for a dead soul. What for? Food, sex, sleep, all those things are gone. What do these things even _do_ with their time?"

"Exactly, Zelas. What do they do? If a person dies, they lose their possessions and home, their ability to grow and change, they're thrust in a world they don't know at all and are unlikely to meet their loved ones again. They lose control over their fate. For many, cessation of existence would have been the kinder end, especially during the reign of Fibrizo," Milina said. "Rangort is creating a world she _can_ eat from by giving them a direction."

"Tss, the benefits are thin for a god. _They_ can just sit back and let the flow carry food to them. What can a god give them to make them happy enough to feed?"

"Well ... Rangort _is_ making a point of allowing new souls to be created by keeping these from reincarnating."

Aaah, there it was. The miasma that Rangort could gain from the dead was much less than from the living, since they lost so much functions that related to their bodies. That only applied to the current numbers, if she could raise the amount of emotive beings in a controlled environment that the devils usually ignored, she had long therm profit. Hmm, and perhaps there was a benefit that these souls could spread her religion to the world of the living.

Rangort might be making hir own plans for the future, the sort that tasted like a power grab. It was either forethought or lack of thought, considering how slow that harvest would be.

By the time Zelas could see Rangort's true form across the astral plane, the landscape of Hell had changed considerably. A mossy green tint had infected the atmosphere and the land had given up pretense of the living world. As if the wind had blown across fragile hills and smeared them out, green structures leaned across dark rivers that went in circles. No even ground was to be seen, so thickly they lay together, but there was a lone road that led to a dark cathedral. It was crudely molded from damp mud boiled to hard rock, or molten lave coaxed to mimic manmade structure. Only the windows were truly a homage, round and and ruby in lead.

Rangort lay thick across the landscape in the form of a yellow fog, small compared to hir were the souls of the Ancient Dragons. They were the praetorian guard when e was absent. When the dark flock noticed her, Zelas was met with hatred and distrust, yet it was not as fiercely tasteful as with the usual dragon. They knew her, a little.

The fact that Rangort was here at all meant e was also aware of certain unrest in the world. Of the three pieces of Shabranigdu that resided in Hell Luke was most likely to pose a threat, as his piece had partially awake.

Milina landed on the platform before the cathedral's entrance, right below Rangort's astral head. She bowed briefly, but there was no reverence in her posture or miasma. Rangort projected a human form, androgynous and of the dark tribal blood of the ancient tribes. This form gave a curt nod to Milina, and nothing was given of her Rangort's true form. All of this was merely show for the souls that were watching.

Well, Zelas knew the art of acting. Her wolf land and she swept off, imaginary wind blowing her white robes and hair.

"Hellmaster Rangort, how is the harvest?" she said, her voice congenial.

Rangort's face sharply turned to Zelas, green eyes glowering.

"Zelas ," Rangort growled. "What do you want here?"

"What, this is all the greeting I get? Perhaps I came to ask about why the wind dragons are trying to create something like a unified dragon nation. Are you conspiring against me?"

"Are you?"

Off course Zelas was, but that wasn't really the point right now.

"Have you become touchy, new Hellmaster?" She held up the captured souls. "These dragons here, they've found out about Val and the involvement of my priest. It would help if you could sent them in their way quickly, if you please."

With too symmetrical steps, Rangort walked over and snatched the souls from Zelas.

"I did not plan to send anyone towards Megiddo anytime soon," Rangort droned. "We're making such good efforts with postponing reincarnation. Most souls keep their sense of time for more than three years even without biological clock. Though I suppose a few dragons will make no difference."

Hir power folded over the souls and for a moment the dragons had joy. They recognized their god, held hope and faith and the overwhelming sensation of holy power nearer than they ever had dreamed. Those few seconds of bliss were enough to make Zelas's proverbial stomach churn.

Then Rangort ripped their astral bodies to pieces. Two dragons had enough identity to realize what was happened and spoke the beginning of a plea, Rangort forgot about this a second after she let go. The gravity of Megiddo swept the blank souls away.

Though the woman's face remained impassive, Zelas smelled Milina's conflict. She had never been a religious person so there was not much to break, but she had to understand what she had just witnessed. Not merely death, but true cessation of a person. Absolute erase, and absolute lack of guilt on behalf of either deity.

Less affected were the Ancient Dragons. They had long since accepted what the gods were like. After all, Vrabazard hadn't cared enough to drop his temple a simple line like, "Stop committing genocide on pacifists, it's not nice."

More over, they knew the last of their kind retained life because of these twelve dying. For ancient dragons, whose DNA was all but wiped out, there was no reincarnation. If their astral form eroded away, they'd just be an aimless specter, forever trapped here with a half-mind. A mixture of Val and cloning was their last hope.

A rather dimwitted hope, as far as Zelas was concerned. They better spend time on staying themselves. Many liked to think of reincarnation as a continuation for a person when in reality it was recycling. Whether by gods's claws, choice or Hell's astral corrosion, an individual ended just like that. That a soul remained changed nothing like that. For a thousand years, Zelas had questioned why devils who desired cessation so much could not give up and end themselves at times they realized they would never get what they wanted most.

That was why every time she was here, she entered the cathedral and told this to its prisoners. That, and long therm planning to ensure Rangort didn't find it strange if she wanted to hang out here for a little longer. That planning would bear fruit today, because Milina only now took off and would take a little while.

Rangort did not question her as Zelas pushed open the heavy door, it did not matter to gods if anyone was tortured as long as they did not need to taste it.

Pulsing red light flared out of the center of the dark hall, energy so thick that soon Zelas could not even feel Rangort's power in the walls anymore. Sound was quenched and the flow died here. Zelas stood in the rotting corpse of a decapitated Ruby Eye Shabranigdu, and the heart of this corpse was a man in a spherical cage.

When a piece of Shabranigdu was destroyed while the host soul practiced influence, a ghost remained due to the chimera process. Like the Knights, but the power had a direct tie to sentience. Luke Yuukaral was one such a ghost. Lezo Greywords had found him and take him under his wing with the intent to teach him to govern the power. Zelas had joined this effort once it became relevant to her goals, but the official story to Rangort was that they would destroy the remaining power of Ruby Eye. E was fooled so easily Zelas could not even take pride in it.

Luke floated in the center of a wiry cage of dark red stone, curled up with his head low. The cage kept him in place should he lose control, but what really did it was his sheer willpower. Luke would have no destruction because Milina was out there and he was firmly against her cessation. A metallic band covered his mouth, preventing him and Shabranigdu from speaking. Even if he was a chimera now, Zelas and any other devil were still bound to obey his every command spoken in Ruby Eye's voice. This was too much of a risk.

When he saw her, he rolled his eyes. Luke always sat through her little rants with annoyance, but didn't make a big deal out of it. After all, Zelas and her project was his best shot at ever walking out of here to be with Milina. There wasn't much complaining to be done in front of the big boss.

"Mister Luke, not today. Today, be alert. You see, the plan will have to be sped up. I'll need to know the signature of the two untainted hosts."

She flicked a cigarette and a smoke into plasmic form and spent the time bringing him up to date with the recent developments. He couldn't ask, but as Zelas could smell and taste his emotions it wasn't difficult to steer a conversation. Curiosity was obvious, if a neutral emotion.

Within reasonable time, Milina returned. Though the thick haze of power, they barely heard her holler her lines. Snuffing out her cigarette, Zelas turned to the weakest section of the walls.

Said wall was kind enough to explode without knocking Luke's cage out of orbit. Milina burst through a dust cloud, flying backwards to keep her eyes on her pursuer. Atop the rubble posed an unimpressive man with wild eyes and over embroidered cloak, the kind of person that liked to make an awesome impression but had spectacularly failed to grasp how this was done.

He roared to the ceiling, causing a few bricks to fall down right on top of him. Zelas, Milina and Luke exchanged an embarrassed look. Then Milina opened the door of Luke's cage and stepped in. Luke encased her with his power while Milina put forth a wing and tended to the feathers, bored already.

The host of Shabranigdu, one of seven, Doom To The World, was dusting off his coat and never realized that in this reality he could just will away dust. Zelas flicked her cigarette holder into a emerald encrusted sword; red handle adorned with green to support shining metal blade. There was a subtle mockery in this that had always gone over Shabranigdu's heads.

The host squinted his eyes, spotted Milina and unleashed an attack of generic fire waves without further thought. Zelas popped in the way and cut it apart like paper, getting rid of the dust clouds in the same move.

"That was all?" Milina asked. She prepared to get out, but Luke tugged her arm, causing Milina to roll her eyes. "I really doubt that guy's trying to trick us."

Zelas chuckled. The first wisp of the host's emotional miasma painted a personality much like Fibrizo, minus the sharp mind. "Don't worry, mister Luke. It's a fool alright."

"You, I command you to attack that god outside!" the host hollered.

Tsss. For all the power of that little soul, it was not the voice of Shabranigdu. She smiled as she floated over to that pathetic thing that hadn't even figured out he didn't need to walk here.

"Hmmm, perhaps I don't really feel like it," she said, placing a curled finger thoughtfully on her cheek. "Should I? Should I not?"

She spun around her axis and around him, the edges of her toga whirling around her. Her ethereal form been one chosen intentionally, modeled after the stereotypical saint but a little more provocative. In Hell where all instinct to breed was gone, its effect was more one of memory, but it usually was a pleasant memory to men. Something to play with. This man was no exception.

"Y-you're one of the five retainers, so you should help me regain my power!"

"Cute, thinks he can be Shabranigdu," she whispered as she laid her arms around his neck. For a few moments she held him with her eyes and let him enjoy the view, then she bore her nails in the back of his neck. "Yet can't even see the wolf whose jaws he is in."

Her power bore into the soul's astral body, thin threads rapidly infecting it's magic. She would remember this soul's mgic and forever be able to track it, and as a bonus the host gave off some tasty miasma.

"What are you ... why are you not obeying?" he stammered.

Tilting her head a little to the side, she smiled sweetly.

"Fibrizo lied when he told you dreams of dominion would come true. Shabranigdu takes you over and you are erased from existence," Zelas said. "All that changes is that you'll be entering cessation for me and not for him. Oh, and for future reference, my name is not _you_. To your kind, I am Zelas Metaliom, Beast Monarch or Greater Beast. Only those I will accept. Remember that."

She tore her nails out of him, leaving sharp marks across his back. The host crumpled down, Zelas kicked him a few feet further before he hit ground. Humiliation tasted so good, especially when fortified by a massive astral being.

The sealed Shabranigdu fumed at the treatment, yet he made no attempt to rectify her. It'd take too much effort for what he believed was honest dissent for a lowly human. Let him believe so.

"Earthlord Rangort," she said as she tapped the floor. "Pay attention."

Roots broke from the cracking floor and encased the host in a similar way to Luke, though this cage had no door. Zelas tapped the curled bars as she floated by and said, "Enjoy your stay. Do try to harm miss Milina, Luke will be glad to introduce you to what a smarter human can do with Ruby Eye's power. You might learn something."

Luke made an offended sound behind her, Milina just sighed and said, "Calm down. Rangort will take them back to Golgotha later."

Outside, the other host chased down Ancient Dragons, so sick with glee he did not notice Rangort. The host leaped for one of the dragons, wholly intent to harm it, only to be plucked away from spontaneously manifesting roots.

When the second host was encased safely, Zelas approached it. This was a child, one of similar disposition as the other. Both tasted like immature, sadistic, egomaniacs and since this one was trying to bite his way out of the cage, Zelas concluded it was another idiot too.

They were likely here because they liked Fibrizo as their playmate, the only thing that could possibly persuade any human to stay in the Hellmaster's presence. The one caveat was that such humans loved too much, be it in a twisted way. They loved power, loved that there was a world to control, and they lacked the disposition to rise in power when they lived. They could never be brought to hate enough for Shabranigdu to awaken and they lacked the magical prowess for alternate awakenings.

"How dare you defy your lord!" the child screeched, pointing at Zelas with a tiny finger. "Free us!"

"How indeed? My favorite theory is that you cannot control chaos to follow the same pattern all the time and I'm one of those pattern breakers. Or maybe, you are not my lord and king," Zelas said with an extra layer of smugness.

Rangort stretched out hir long neck so e came face to face with Zelas, now in the form of a wormlike dragon. Another act for the watching dragons, so Zelas reignited her cigarette and took a breath, every bit the image of nonchalant aristocrat. The message : not impressed.

"Chaos like how these two just happen to break out right when you're visiting here, Greater Beast?"

"Aaah, that would have been me, actually!" a shrill someone called. "Sorry I'm late!"

There jumped up what looked like an elderly human on the plasmic plane and a red, coiling devil on the astral plane. Quite the bastardization of Shabranigdu's power, a truth easier to achieve for him as his piece had no will.

"Oh, hello there, mister Laust," Zelas said. "How are you enjoying the afterlife?"

"Wonderful!" To enforce this, he twirled around on one foot. "Dying peacefully of old age isn't half as good as people make it sound, you have to wait so long to get to the good stuff! And I am so much more useful here nowadays. So not going to reincarnate anytime soon, I like this new Hell very much."

Good. He didn't buy into that 'the soul lives on' shit, he had made a true and successful effort of surviving reincarnation. Though he held less power than the Knight of Siephied or even the Knight of Ragradia, the Knight of Shabranigdu used what he had well.

"Explain!" Rangort demanded. Anger was just about the most of a distinct emotion e made.

"Just helping out a friend," Laust said innocently, clasping his hands behind his back as he bowed to the god. "Heard the Beast Monarch was here and was so curious what she'd say about these hosts."

"If she was affected by Shabranigdu's call, we'd have a disaster on our hands! You fool!" the god hollered, sending tremors through the hills and cathedral.

Said the pot to the spot clean kettle that only happened to be black.

"Oh, worry not, Earthlord. Who knows better what Ruby Eye can and cannot do than I do?" On the astral plane, his monstrous body smirked with five mouths and waved seventeen hands, some at the god, while others gave the middle finger to the nearby host of Shabranigdu.

Zelas chuckled despite herself. With Rangort distracted, she astrally reached out to the second host. Proximity would have been better, but she could make it work. She pinched off a little piece of power and let it go at once; enough to learn the magical signature.

"Rangort, dear, you'll never convince that man of the need for your sense of protocol. Remember, he got along so well with Lina Inverse," she said once she no longer needed a distraction.

"—better things to do than beach resorts ... " Rangort stopped and considered what Zelas said, swallowed hir pride (thanks goodness, Zelas never could figure out whether she liked its taste or not, especially when it's something that Rangort only displayed so inconsistently) and picked up Laust. E set him down over at the group of Ancient Dragons. "Do not let him leave."

"Ah, and here I thought we'd get no privacy at all," Zelas said, swaying her hip to the right. "But really, Rangort, no beach resort? I assure you they are quite lovely once you develop the taste for them."

"I have no need for developing mortal pleasures," Rangort stated. "Tell me what you're up to, Zelas."

This was not something Zelas would walk away from without explanation, apparently.

"Let's say I want precautions. If Vrabazard shows up in Hell and kicks the hosts into Megiddo, we lose experimental potential. At the very least, I will find them back on my own. Would you have trusted me if I told you to let me drive magic into them otherwise?"

"No."

"Well then, that is your fault. Be thankful for mister Laust that he placed reason ahead of your instinct to resent me. You'll be finding my more reliable than you think."

It was a feeble excuse, and she smelled it did not fall into accepting earth. More spice was needed.

"Besides, how quickly do you believe the other retainers will act, now they have noticed the gods are planning something? The gods have never taken the first initiative and I assure you that Deep Sea Dalphin is a very sharp mind. She has a thing for emotionally exploitable boys, she'd love to steal away one from Hell."

E still doubted, for as far as Zelas could smell, but without an accompanying face she couldn't read more. "I assume cleaning up those dragons and figuring out the host's identities is not the only thing you came here to do?"

Zelas smiled a little wider. The line had been bitten. "No, as a matter of fact, there is another little thing regarding an Ancient Dragon with his adoptive mother."

Beat.

Oh, come on!

"The one who adopted the reborn Valgarv," she flatly said. "You will have heard me mention him."

"I'm aware of it. A wonder they let it live, given the likelihood of a miserable future. Killing it right now would leave it happiest in Hell. What about it?"

"Xelloss isn't making much progress, not quick enough. Perhaps the child can. He doesn't consciously remember anything, but a lot of those strange patterns remain, he'll learn quickly. It would fit quite well into the shield protocols I am developing."

"Hmm. You are certain he doesn't have ideas from the past life?"

"None the least. He is very loyal to Filia Ul Copt. I say we speed up things, relocate a few things. How about I help you bring those things back to their prison, and then we shall speak?"

"I don't need your help," Rangort said.

Zelas shrugged and leaned back, just in time for her wolf to run up behind her. She scratched him behind the ear and they purred together as they watched the humorless god go abouts hir way. The time was spent by Zelas mentally putting together the new pieces and figuring out how to play Rangort further.

Megiddo, gods, devils, all deities and little world walls. She wasn't certain where the next unexpected thing to throw her plan awry would come from, but it was likely something much smaller than them.

Rangort returned soon, neither smug nor satisfied with hir quick work. They changed the plan, and Zelas was sent away.

On her way back, she passed through Fibrizo's canyon was a last minute errand.

Fibrizo's burns lined the dark walls, more erratic ones across what had once been systematic, smooth carving. He had lost his reason, had done useless things. Zelas defined her projection to feel small sensations in the fingertips, it was like his madness given form.

To raise power against the Lord of Nightmares, to not accept that she might want anything but destruction.

She did not want to imagine how he must have felt when the Mother Of All Things seemed to betray him, but she imagined it anyway. It was her safeguard against similar arrogant mistakes. She would no go down the way he had done, blind to what was truly happening in the worlds and beyond.

The method to his madness had begun during the War of the Devil's Fall. All five retainers knew their lord, but they had never truly seen him. For the other four, Lei Magnus was their first meeting. Fibrizo had grown restless shortly after, unstable to the point where Lei Magnus took Garv to war despite Fibrizo being more powerful.

Zelas had a theory that Fibrizo had realized that even a complete Shabranigdu could not break down the walls of the world, or perhaps he'd looked too closely at the way chimerization corrupted. Whatever he had learned, it had eaten at him.

How many hours had Fibrizo wasted in the bowels of Hell, testing the power of the hosts? How many hosts had he known, had he tried to torture into hating so much that Ruby Eye would awaken, only for them to simply fall into Megiddo?

How hard had it been for him to feign friendship to hosts that would soon learn that he could not care for anything, before finding and keeping those two? He might well have met a thousand incarnations of hosts. Children that had died too early, people that had taken their life to prevent an awakening. Every time, he'd have been forced to ask why something as simple as a human could contain a deity's power.

Then there was Garv, merged with the soul and corrupted by it, yet without losing power. His progeny, Valgarv, similarly in favor of existence and bring along a conscience to boot. Souls did not break, devils did.

Reason would have whispered every time, _what if the system is in favor of existence_? You see my child, there _exists_ a principle of balance.

The Lord of Nightmares before him, uncorrupted yet still with mercy for the world. He had made up his own explanation, and imagined wrong.

Questions could save one or drive one mad. Zelas had rigged her coin for the former.

**· · · · · · ·**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Megiddo is mentioned only once in the series : when Amelia performs the Megiddo Flare to send the ghosts on their way to the underworld. If you think about that for a bit, it's a cruel thing to do, albeit unknowingly. At that point, Fibrizo was still in charge and the reason those souls clung to the world was likely to avoid hell. 
> 
> Angels are mentioned by the outer world people who mistake Amelia for one, and statues of them appear on a church within the barrier in Slayers Gorgeous, where they surround a dragon. So, considering that religion surrounding the dragon gods is fairly true in this world, angels may exist as their servants. Might as well go with it.
> 
> Fibrizo brought back the residents of Sairaag without much effort, apparently. This means that he rules all of the dead, good and bad alike. The implication : there's no heaven where the gods gather and protect good people.


	3. Filia's Directions

If it wasn't for her family, she wouldn't be doing this. She was a teleporting dragon, for crying out loud; she could handle herself.

She couldn't handle a town and a vulnerable family together. Unless she locked them up, she could not protect them well enough, not from the lingering distrust and not from the mobs that followed. Finding a new home was safer and easier, so much so it had almost become routine (a hated one).

Across the years, she had tried several different tactics. Tell people up front who she was, keep it a secret and spoil it with an accidental tail or wing, buy a large mansion and keep separate from the crowd, try to keep a poorly veiled secret as the friendly neighborhood witch ... the last one had gone fine, up until the dragon stunt from two weeks ago.

As of right now, everyone had always been suspicious about that mysterious lady with her minions. Yesterday, the first rock came flying through a window. The neighbors had seen "nothing" despite having been on their porches. While shopping, Filia had heard whispers of a criminal wanted by the dragons — perhaps the traveling monks were to be notified? No, others said, let's alert the governor instead.

If it had been an option she would have just teleported away with everyone, but her navigation wasn't much better than her transformation control. For her power to work safely she needed to be in an area with high magic vibrations that she could feel, if she wanted to know where she was and where to go. Otherwise, she was limited to things within her line of sight. This meant there was a journey to prepare for. Her shopping trip had been to stock up.

Now in the early morning, she sat hunched over the crystal ball she used to channel Vision spells between her and her company.

"We have everything under control, my lady," her director said. "The money has been transferred to Kundumin, where you are expected within two days. The weather forecast for the north is unfortunately a wild guess, but the seaside past the desert should allow for safe flying in the following week."

"That is good enough. If the weather changes beyond that, we'll know the way. But has there been no word yet from Sailoon?"

"Not if we apply the safety measures that you recommended us. Sailoon's barriers have intensified greatly in the past two weeks for some reason. We dared not experiment, we are no old dragons experienced with magic."

Filia nodded. "Thank you for at least attempting. Until we speak again, mister Argon, and know that I am much obliged for your work."

"Always a pleasure, my lady," he said with a salute. She saluted back. Neither of them were of the military, but he had been. A defector who had disagreed with the quiet machinations of government as executed the traveling monks, a clan of black dragons who traveled the lands under holy name. Filia already avoided them, so she hired the man on a whim and a loose leaf.

Next was one more call to make. Filia chanted the Vision spell again and pulled the crystal's energies looser. If Sailoon was difficult to contact even for her best factory, Zephyria would ... no, Zephyria worked fine, she noted with relief. With a few seconds delay, the image of an auburn haired woman appeared, leaned casually on her arms and her eyes hidden behind low bangs. A careless smirk was on her lips.

"Hey, Filia," Luna said. "You're early, did ya get a particularly noxious customer? Bet ya it can't beat the fellows I got over the floor the other day."

Despite her own mood, Filia smiled. Her favorite method to cope with small stress was to speak to Luna Inverse, who had oh so familiar experience with being a supernaturally powered entity that nonetheless had to put up with the customer always being right.

"I'm afraid I had far more difficult customers to deal with the other day."

"Did Clown bring packmates again?"

"No, there were dragons." With a few quick sentences, she got Luna up to date.

Luna's smirk dropped and tilted her head, so one red eye appeared from behind her bangs. "Damn. All the way down there? There's dragons making allegiances with nations up here, they came by Zephyria too. Those fellows I mentioned? Scaly asses trying to recruit me. Pfft! Kicked them out off course."

"Do you know anything of Sailoon?"

Luna shrugged. "Nope, but I bet little Amelia won't like what they're preaching. Filia, I don't think you should find another cute little town. Go somewhere safer."

"I'm planning to head north already, to Sailoon. Val is strong, but I want to avoid him needing to fight off any golden dragons at all costs."

"Hmm. If it ever becomes necessary, hop over to me, or at least Liliane if it doesn't work to my place. Sailoon should work for your navigation, they're the suckers I pick up most prayers from, whether I like it or not."

"I'll keep that in mind. Thank you, miss Luna."

"Don't mention it. Seriously. Especially not in prayer. Oh, and once you're gone, destroy this ball. It's probably how they were drawn to your city."

As much as she regretted it, she followed the advice before leaving the house. The shard were left behind. Luna knew better than anyone about holy magic's principles.

It wasn't raining anymore, but the roof drained slowly due to all the leafs cluttering the drain. A persistent drop nagged on the surface of the full rain barrel below it. Filia had always hated that sound, but it was one of those tiny nuisances that she just knew she was going to miss once it was gone.

Gingerly Filia closed the back door and turned the key. The door clicked shut and she bent key into a small loop, which she tossed in the barrel. It would take too long to sell the house. With a brisk pace, she left it behind her.

She told herself she walked swiftly to fight the cold of the morning, but every little sound was like the start of a mob, and the crackle of hearths reminded her of a burning house.

For all her worries, she reached the walls of the city without any trouble. The fields stretched peacefully across the hills, covered by pale mist. It was a day of rest, there were no early farmers. Filia let the fog swallow her before the forest did.

Huddled in a clearing was her family. She set down the items she had taken along — four packs the size of hay bundles — kissed the sleepy Val and Molly on the foreheads and disappeared behind a bush to transform.

Once a dragon, she nodded at Gravos and the vulpen. In a practiced effort, they tied all the luggage on her back using a makeshift harness. In the middle of the luggage circle, the group would sit, shielded from wind and lethal drops. Filia did have practice with catching falling people, but it was always best to play safe.

"Everyone set?"

"We are, gunmoll," Jillas said. Seven years and he still wasn't past that habit, Filia had long since given up.

She couldn't resist circling the city to savor the last sight she'd have of it. This had been their home for almost four years and had been everything Filia wanted out of life : a small cozy space, lots of family and friends and lots of chances to do something for the world.

At least those chances weren't entirely lost. Their company wasn't dissolved in the slightest, they'd just have to change address again. She swept away, turning nostalgia to steel.

Filia stayed low to the lands, avoiding to higher clouds and freezing air; she had a spell for warmth in place but it drained her magic so she avoided pressuring it. Once it was noon, the altitudes would be warmer and there would be more people outdoors, then she would ascend. For now she just flew north, but in a while directions would be needed. She would have to get them the mundane way.

Ahead of them was a journey that hopefully would just be dull. The dangers of it were not in the form of natural predators, or even temperature. Her real concern was Val.

Like her own, his human projection was imperfect. Val's legacy from his former life shone through in that he already knew how to transform at this absurdly young age, despite knowing no other spell, but he had all the concentration of a child. If he fell asleep, there was a serious risk that he'd suddenly sprout limb or worse, shift to full weight while staying small. So much force concentrated on a small spot was the equivalent of being pierced by a blade, so keeping him awake during flight was an imperative.

On the evening third day, it was one of those dusks that colored everything old gold, the wind was not harsh and perhaps the warmth spell worked a little too well, perhaps Filia was a little too content. Everyone else fell asleep, so he did as well.

Before Filia knew good and well, the rib directly below Val snapped. Her cry mingled with the sharp increase of wind as she fell down. She could not even flip around, he weighed so much he threw off her balance.

"Val, wake up!" Gravos and Jillas both screamed. The next moment, there was a loud _whack_ , and then a poof accompanied by light. The weight fell off.

The next blink of her eyes, a thick feathered coat swooped below her. On reflex she stretched her hind legs, catching the impact without further broken bones. As the horizon aligned again with her direction, she looked around. Her remaining passengers were jostled, but nobody had fallen off. Relief flooded her and remained for a good ten seconds before she realized that Val was _carrying_ her.

She barely covered his back. Her forearms clutched feathers bigger than her head, and the wing that smoothly moved aside of her cast a shadow enough to cover whenever it crossed the sun.

An adult Ancient Dragon, just like that, and not even a hint of a transformation spell. On top of that, some power was at work to dull the wind's effect, because the whistling was gone she clearly heard the confused sounds of the rest of her family.

"Gunmoll, you alright?" Jillas asked, his voice shaky but also elated.

With a groan, Filia pushed herself up a little. "Not quite. I'm going to have to heal myself."

"Hold on for a bit, mom, I'll see whether I can land," Val said with a heavy voice that she barely recognized. His head turned sideways, she saw a golden eye. It was so familiar it drove away any ill ease. This was still her child.

"Be careful to not land on a slope or a breakable ledge," Gravos said.

Val dipped lower and swooped across the tops until Gravos pointed out a stable enough peak. It would have to do. They were well in sight, but if any dragons came here, they were likely sent by a medium anyway. Hiding low would be useless and had a greater risk of running into humans.

With surprising ease Val landed on the top, where he stretched out his wing for his passengers to step off. The shield that kept the wind back remained in place. Filia waited for the others to get off and Gravos to unpack, Val stayed perfectly still the entire time.

It was all so convenient. Val had only been the size of a dog mere days ago, he couldn't possibly be this large without some concrete magic linking him to his past. Even more so than the fact he could perform transformation magic at a ridiculously young age, when only high ranked dragons could master this spell. Val had been a ranked adult when he'd turned into Valgarv, she knew.

What if his mind caught up to his body?

She'd have to ask her son what he knew about this sudden transformation, but she was afraid of the answer. Oblivious to these worries, it was Jillas who broke the silence. Eagerly he led Palu and Molly before Val's claws and pointed up. "See, Palu? That's why I always call him lord! He is the strongest dragon in the world!"

"He's pretty! But how can we play like this?" Molly asked in a quiet voice.

"I can shrink down again later," Val rumbled. "I think. I'm not sure what happened, I just knew I had to be larger and it did."

"That's cause you're a special dragon, right?" Palu asked.

Val nodded, turned his head to Filia. "Mom, do you have any idea how I did this?"

"I ... no, I don't. I know almost nothing about Ancient Dragons, I'm sorry. It's not usual for Golden Dragons, at least." Sometimes, she sorely wished she _had_ told Val about has past as a world destroying chimera, because that would have made this conversation go much easier. It was just that the actually telling him part was so hard.

Gravos had finished plucking all luggage from her back and Filia was about to get off when a familiar sensation crawled up her spine.

"My my, what a show. Not afraid any hostile dragons might notice you?"

There was a collective groan from everyone, but Filia killed the urge to call him garbage. Seven years of practice backed her up. Garbage was for more dire situations so he couldn't act like she was chronically rude.

She felt shoes on her nape of her neck. He actually had the nerve to sit down on her! She would have slapped him off with her tail if so much movement wouldn't hurt. If he was here, he probably had followed them at distance for a while and had gotten closer to feed. She was going to deny him that too.

Gravos helped her set the bone back in place, after which Filia walked a short distance to cast Resurrection. The distance was so that the borrowed energy came from the environment rather than her family. She used her tail to channel the magic, as her arms were not versatile enough in dragon form.

The others set camp between Val's massive forearms, a small fire already started. Xelloss hovered around them, peeking over shoulders until Elena finally threw up her hands. "What do you want?"

"Oh, I was just curious where you all were going at this late hour."

"North," Filia said. She didn't bother speaking loudly, he could hear her well enough.

"Are you sure you're going the right way?"

"Actually, no. Noticed these clouds around us, Evil Cone Thingy? I'm just waiting till mom feels better, then we'll figure it out," Val said.

"Well, you've been going wrong before she fell."

"Maybe we're going somewhat northway, not directly north," Jillas said.

"Oh really now? And where exactly is this variant of northway now?"

"Why not tell us it's a secret, Xelloss? That would be so helpful," Filia said.

"I'm afraid that even with my skill and experience, keeping the position of the north a secret for a decent period is beyond my ability. Therefore, I care not for guarding it. You'll want to go that way," he said, pointing a little sideways of the direction she'd been heading.

Filia looked in the direction and then back at him.

"It won't be the first time you set me up to walk into the wrong town for your own amusement."

"With your insistence of alluding to this, I rather doubt you found it such an objectionable experience. Now, I'll admit it would be entertaining to repeat that, but I'll be on a mission in a few hours. It wouldn't benefit me in any way."

That much was true. Xelloss was fond of discord if he was around to consume the ensuing negative miasma, but didn't care for causing long lasting trouble purely for the sake of being wicked. Otherwise they'd never have gotten a cannon factory off the ground, let alone would they be stocking the country of white magic. It was one of Xelloss's peculiar things, he let enemies have things. The Gorun Nova, the demonsblood talismen, the Claire Bible (if only long enough to learn the Ragna Blade) and even her son, who he knew would grow up to be a powerful enemy to devils. This was one of the things she held onto to see him as a person now, even if his presence was a source of constant stress.

Off course, that didn't mean she could expect the full answer.

"So if there is no town, are there any castles, religious orders, cities or garrisons in training that way? After all, I don't know what a few hours means to you. Perhaps you'll stick around till morning for a feast."

He smiled a little wider. "You're getting better at being no easy fun. Yes, there is a city straight ahead. They've got cannons too, are you sure you're not curious about it?"

"No, not at all. We already know my cannons are best," Jillas said proudly, thumping a fist on his chest.

"Oh really? Your cannons still can't do anything to a Zannafar, ever."

"Oh, I'll bet you that my missiles can!"

Jillas could rival Filia when it came to defending his art, something he'd taken over from Filia herself. Normally Xelloss wasn't interested in arguing with Jillas, but today, well, it was another convenient little thing.

It didn't slip her notice that Xelloss was pointedly _not_ commenting on Val's peculiar abilities. This did a greater service to her than anything he might say. Val knew how old Xelloss was, he'd assume Xelloss thought it was normal he could do this and was just being annoying by not sharing information. Val lost interest in questions and started grooming his wings.

There probably was some ulterior motive to Xelloss's covert help, off course. It also had not slipped her notice that Xelloss was around a lot more, and with a lot more attention to Val, ever since the battle of three years ago. Still, she was friends with both Inverse sisters and selfish motives were something she was bound to tolerate. Plus, Xelloss had this certain accusation that she loved to undermine.

When Xelloss had managed to thoroughly confuse Jillas about what they'd been talking (artistic integrity had gotten involved, she resolved to get back at him for that), he floated over to sit down on her back. He was about to start, but thrown off balance when she whispered a soft, "Thanks."

With a huff, he looked away. Perhaps he'd been preparing a lecture about selfish dragons, now preemptively undermined. Filia couldn't help but take some smug satisfaction in that even as he floated after her, doubtlessly preparing some comeback.

Now her healing was nearly done, she felt a lot better. Val stopped grooming and expectantly looked at her. Carefully, Filia crawled over his arm and the huddled people sitting there. There was a little space between the campfire, allowing her to sit in the crook between the ground and his neck if she leaned on his arm. It was almost a reveral of role, like she was the child again. She pushed back memories of a long gone family and settled against Val.

This was far cozier a scene than she had expected this journey to bring. Xelloss seemed to think so too, because she felt that small drop in power that indicated he was about to leave. Normally she would have welcomed his departure, but when he nearly flickered away this time she snatched her tail around him.

He could have dodged that easily, yet she had him. Needing an excuse to stay?

"Oh no you don't. If there are in fact dragons in the area, you can stay here and let your aura scare them away," she said. "You still owe me for all the things you put me through."

He cracked an eye open and raised a finger, "I must commend you for creative solution for dealing with your underdeveloped true form. It's nice you're finally embracing your nature as glorified lizard."

She twisted him upside down to whack him to the ground, but the satisfaction of ramming his head down was denied, he just turned into a cone right away. There was an obnoxious laughter, at which Filia shook her head to throw her hair out of her face.

Val knew what game she called for. It was Amelia's Happy Thoughts time. He gave her a big lick, which initiated a grooming session full of warm and fuzzy feelings. Grooming wasn't part of golden dragon habits, but for the heavily feathered Val it was a necessary instinct. Knowing that made it less mortifying, so she let Val do it. It was actually pretty pleasant.

Elena joined in by initiating a song of her homeland. Stir, fry, and add some good food. It wasn't a mystery anymore to Filia how Lina, Gourry and Amelia were happy so easily.

The cone whined and made pathetic attempts to get away, but didn't manage. Somehow.

Sometimes she thought Xelloss faked this weakness, because honestly ... it made no sense. He had no qualms about ice cream parlors despite the people enjoying their life there. In fact, Gourry consistently thought life was wonderful since he was with Lina and too oblivious to worry about anything. Xelloss shouldn't be able to stand him, yet was largely indifferent to the guy.

Xelloss didn't lie, but that only meant his words did not state untruths. He was just fine with acting in a way that gave the wrong ideas and she did not believe for an instant that he couldn't just withdraw to the astral plane.

When she woke up the next morning and he was still there, again perched on her back as if she were a chair, she was more certain than ever of this. Hours counted up to several days. Xelloss stayed with them all the way to the shore of the Desert of Destruction, claiming she had "invited" him by pinning him down.

This was perhaps safer, but also irritating. Filia was better at not losing her temper, but not so much at staying silent. It took less than half a day before Gravos considered playing "throw bombs at mountaintops" with Val and Palu because apparently the explosions were healthier noise than the constant arguing. Xelloss helpfully pointed out that that wouldn't stop supernatural creatures from being able to talk, since they could just raise their voice. And then he encouraged Val to fly down and start some avalanches by screaming in full transformed shape. Filia warned him to stay small, just in case anyone saw him, and he obeyed. Xelloss invented the "Boring Dragons" song.

It was a front row seat to the opera of stress, in more ways than one. Underneath the obnoxiousness, Filia could no longer deny that there were plans involving her son. Xelloss was keeping an eye on them, most likely under orders of Zelas. Any speculation she could draw from that was not very nice.

Val ended up taking the foxes for the occasional flight for fun, but also to increase his control. After the near fatal incident, he didn't want to risk hurting her again. He was very good at manifesting only his wings, allowing him to stay small while still having the benefits of flight and increased strength. That was a skill beyond Filia's level already, but she didn't tell him. Let him think it was natural, so he could be happy, and could become a new person without being dictated by the past.

It would be too cruel if he was reborn just to remember the past, but she wouldn't put it past a god. At first Filia had considered the rebirth a mercy, but what if it wasn't? The more Val showed unusual qualities, the more she sought an explanation that was least threatening. Perhaps it was purely a side effect of the creation magic that progressed out of fusion magic. Perhaps Volphied had just resonated with this and had acted on her natural pro existence instinct. Perhaps she'd find out sooner than she wanted.

To her right a blissfully oblivious Val tumbled in circles, Molly firmly held in his arms. The children laughed, unconcerned of falling down or falling to the past. Just for the heck of it, Xelloss became a swarm of tiny black cones and announced they were now playing dodge, much to Val's joy. Filia looked over her shoulder and saw that Jillas had just as little worry as Val did, though Elena watched with trepidation. Xelloss was probably getting his snack out of Elena's concern.

"They're safe, Val won't let her fall, nor will Xelloss," Filia said.

"I know, but I can't help but worry," she said. "Perhaps too much."

Filia silently agreed. Then again, she thought she was pretty justified in fretting. She had two creatures of mass destruction settled in her casual life, for crying out loud. Albeit, the way they goofed around that was a less dramatic thought than it ought to be.

At the point where the journey passed most closely to Wolfpack Island, Xelloss left without a word. The island was too far away to see, but she couldn't help but glance in the direction every now and then. It wasn't so unlikely that right now, the beast devils were doing something far less harmless than playing with children.

Once they reached the Alliance of Coastal States, they took a stop in a nearby city for reasons of stocking. Filia wasn't exactly hungry, but that didn't mean she couldn't enjoy a good meal. Or tea. During the journey she hadn't brought out her tea set from sub space at any given time because of Xelloss; he went through tea like mages went through food. The restaurant did object to consumption of brought-in food, but Filia just plopped out her tail and kindly explained she wasn't costing the restaurant any money because they sold no tea.

The restaurant really was a lovely little place, very acoustic and rustic. Fish nets on the walls were perhaps a little overdone, but who cared? The seafood was fresh and arrange in inventive ways, and even that bread basket was just adorable.

She was just about to take her first sip of much needed tea when the entire tea set broke to pieces.

Just like that. No clumsy waiters, accidental transformations, noxious devils or stray bombs were involved.

Filia spent about three seconds staring in horror, then she screamed.

"Please, boss, keep it down, people are staring," Gravos muttered.

"My handmade one of a kind tea set! Do you have any idea how long I had to save to get the money for it?"

"Oh yes, we know."

"We also remember the journey to get it."

"We have plenty of money now," Palu said.

"That's not the point! These aren't made anymore! It's ..."

... a curious way for shards to fall. She'd been a diviner for long enough to recognize patterns.

She prodded the pieces once before hovering her finger over the pattern. There was a circle around a strangle squiggly pile and three letters in dust of an ancient script. All were variants of movement oriented around the pile. More importantly, there was the trace of a divine energy. Not Vrabazard's, but it was definitely a god's message.

"Gunmoll, what's up?" Jillas asked.

Filia crossed her arms and sat back with a sigh.

"Seven years of silence," she whispered as she closed her eyes.

Living without being a priestess hadn't been too hard. She had Val and the others now, whatever spirituality she had gained from devotion wasn't truly far. Yet the closest she'd been to divinity in the past seven years were those moments she channeled the power of Siephied, the Eternal Queen and Luna Inverse. The former was impersonal, the latter two faithless and happy with it. Filia felt less aversion to subjecting to the gods, but nowadays it came with doubt. They had not remembered her, so she had believed for years.

And then just like that, the gods were back in her life like they'd never left. Not even a _hello, and sorry for the absence._

Filia opened her eyes again. The heaped pieces in the circle's center appeared to be some sort of landscape, mountains perhaps, but she did not recognize them.

"Is everything alright?" a waitress asked. Oh, right, she'd been screaming.

"Can you please tell me what this resembles?"

"Those appear to be the Kataart mountains," the woman said after some thoughts.

Oh, crap. Filia did not like where this was heading.

Amelia had suggested she moved to Kataart at the end of the quest, Filia had decided against it. Amelia was likely biased since she owed Milgazia her life, and though she wouldn't ever believe Amelia meant poorly, Filia couldn't risk taking Val into a swarm of golden dragons no matter how good the track record of their leader was. Too complicated, too much lies would be needed.

And now there was a god who wanted her to go _there_.

"Don't go, miss Filia. You have said yourself that the gods do not care much to meddle with mortal business, or would you fear their revenge if you refuse?" Elena asked.

"That's exactly why I'm worried. Normally, they don't _bother_ unless invoked. If they come out and give signs, then it's bound to be important. I don't want to, but still, the gods are benign if they do choose to act."

"You're not going to listen, right, mom? We were going to Sailoon! I was going to meet Amelia and Zelgadis!"

"We _are_ going to Sailoon," Filia said. "Just ... we may also go the the Kataart mountains."

This broke her family into a chorus of objections, but to Filia it felt muffled as she felt the holy energy. A god's touch felt pleasant to a dragon in the same way a devil's presence sent chills up the spine. If ever so subtly, it was something that compelled her to give heed to the command.

So Filia found herself undecisive yet again. Out the restaurant back into the air, and on.

By the time they reached the borders of Sailoon, she still hadn't figure out what to do. She was so indecisive that she kept flying on a bit just to have more time to think, and like this they reached the end of the day, and another day, and again, until she reached the other border without having angled off towards the capital.

And from there on, she kept on flying a few more days, until she landed near Gyria, capital of the kingdom of Dils.

It may have had something to do with her tea leaf container exploding to form another sign. More strongly though, trusting the gods was something that came naturally to Filia beyond being a priestess. She was a golden dragon, after all.

The Dils kingdom had a sore history with demons infiltrating it. Lina and Gourry had been involved with Dynast Grauscherrer's plot of starting another Resurrection war, ultimately setting free the kingdom and later destroying the piece of Shabranigdu. During this time they had traveled with Milgazia and gotten to know him better, another point towards not being entirely fearful.

But first, she wanted to scoop out the situation; she had grown a healthy distrust of lacking thorough information about dragon clans. Perhaps hear first what the humans said. Besides, divine omens tended to be awfully vague, and there had been no route included in her rudely delivered message. If Valwin or Rangort were going to break her tea set to talk to her, they could have at least made it more useful.

The moment they stepped into the capital, Jillas tapped her on the arm.

"Hey gonmoll, smell that?"

"No, what?"

"Other dragons," Palu said.

"Are you sure?"

"As sure as I can be, boss. They're down that way," Jillas said.

"Lead us there," she said. "And keep your guns set."

They passed several crowded streets, lost their way the alleys, found the main streets and lost their way there. Filia and Gravos climbed a wall or two with foxes on her back, but they eventually found their way to a wide court of what might have been the castle grounds. Hey, it wasn't _her_ fault these places weren't monsterproof in the slightest. And really, these guards were terribly absent.

After passing a hallway with pillars, they looked across a courtyard bristling with life and tanks. Specifically, they looked like those designed by Pokota — Amelia had sent them sketches once to ask whether Jillas could make anything similar — but with less obvious animal motifs. There had a sleeker look and dragon traits, but still looked out of place with the traditional stone look of the palace and its people.

From the magic of it, many of the people walking between them were in fact dragons, and others were elves. On the sidelines of the plaza humans cluttered, but they remained at a safe distance. Filia's company drew a lot of their attention, but she only needed to stick out her tail and they'd bow and scurry away.

From the looks of it, the dragons and elves were lending the humans magical help in some sort of war act, which surprised Filia.

She approached one of the elves, who was stacking ammo near one of the entrance gates.

"Excuse me, I only recently arrived. Why are there so many dragons and elves here?"

The elf gave her an odd look, then glanced at the group behind them. She heard one of the other elves speculate about about newly hired servants or foreigners who were too lazy to read their invite letters.

"You can tell there's dragons here?" Filia was glad there wasn't a follow up on why she was even standing here if she didn't know what was up.

"I can smell'em," Jillas said.

"Ah," the elf said as she raised her nose a little. "Well, there is no need to worry. These are all golden and black dragons, servants of Aqualord Ragradia. They have only the best intentions for humans. Surely someone in the palace has told you this, miss ..."

"Filia Ul Copt, and these are—"

"Is there anything else you want?"

"Are any elders here?"

Irritated, the elf pointed to a wall at the court's other end. "Lord Azonge, leader of the black dragons of the Kataart Mountains."

Atop a long stone stairway stood a blackhaired man in his thirties, dressed in off-white clothing, with a white cape trailing behind. Surrounding him were several blond and black haired men, all formed human but just a touch to too handsome and clean.

Filia had to do a double take, there was hardly a wrinkle in sight.

"That is the oldest black dragon?" she asked. "What happened to the Elders?"

"He is an elder," the elf said.

"But he looks so young!"

The elf frowned. "Old age is not a fear for the dragons under Ragradia's legacy, they have learned to remain young."

Now that was curious. The elders of her clan most definitely had looked _old_. The spirits of the Ancient Dragons had also looked old. Was Ragradia something of an eccentric amongst the dragons?

"Would you lead me to him? I'd like to—"

"No. If we let any curious human speak to him, he would never get a chance to work."

Filia lifted one of the orbs of her headdress, revealing a pointy ear. Honestly, she would have expected the hat to have given her away anyway, but apparently customs were different here.

"You're an elf?"

"No! I'm a golden dragon! I come from the south. Once I was a priestess of the clan of Fire Dragon King Vrabazard, before the Dark Star incident saw them killed." Perhaps a little leverage was in place.

"Ah! Off course I will introduce you."

The elf put down the crate he'd been holding and led her to the front of the mansion. As they approached and she heard the conversation, Filia's mood fell. They spoke of "the humans" rather than "our allies" or mentioning names. She stopped her family at the bottom of the stairway, walking up alone.

"Lord Azonge, this is Filia Ul Copt from the clan of the Fire Dragon King Vrabazard, a priestess of the Most Venerable One." Filia didn't like how she left out ex priestess, because this implied she still served religiously.

An untrained smile stretched on the dragon's human face.

"Ah. Very welcome, Filia Ul Copt. Have you come to aid in our efforts?"

"Actually, I don't know what your efforts are. I was on my way to the Kataart mountains to meet with lord Milgazia, with whom I share a friend. While passing by, I was curious of what's going on here."

"We are in the middle of organizing an alliance with the humans," he said proudly. "I presume you've heard of the issues the kingdom of Dils has had with devils?"

Filia nodded, and noted the elder spoke loudly, so it echoed across the courtyard. It was a show.

"We believe the best way to prevent devils from furthermore exploiting this kingdom in their efforts to revive pieces of Shabranigdu, we must be the ones to support the humans."

"That is very noble of you," Filia said with practice curtsy, even if her jaded self reminded her there might be arrogant reasons underlying.

"I will arrange an escort for you so you may meet my friend as soon as possible. The devils are stirring in the mountains, doubtlessly they have caught wind of our movement."

"But you can beat them back, right?" a small person said from below. Val and Molly had come running up the stairs. Val was weary, but Molly looked up full of admiration at the fancy clothes and imposing figures.

Azonge's expression grew more distant.

"Yours?" he asked Filia sternly. "Unusual traveling company."

"They're my family."

He snorted. He actually snorted! Filia couldn't kill a twitch of her mouth.

"No beastmen here. You will have to leave them behind," Azonge said. He shoved Molly away with his foot. The small fox stagged back to the edge of the stairway, lost her balance and tumbled down.

Val jumped after her at once, catching before she hit the first step. Curling to a ball, he rolled down the stairway. Gravos caught him there. Almost proudly, Val uncurled and held out Molly to Elena. She was alright, if on the verge of tears.

Filia breathed a sigh of relief, which faded into a glare as she reached below her skirt for Lord Mace. She didn't care who the dragon in front of her was, not anymore, as she thrust the spikes in his face.

"You apologize right now!"

"Put that away. Wanton violence is unbecoming of a dragon."

"Wanton? _You_ shoved a little child down a stairway!"

"Beastmen are flexible."

Lord Mace impacted with his head and toppled him over. With a graceful arc, he careened into the wall behind him. Tiny whiny elves danced around his head as he fell out of a self-shaped hole.

Immediately, the two nearest dragons moved to help him stand up. No such concern was given to Val and Molly when they fell _without_ comedy physics. Filia had a dark moment where she considered hitting him again, but in a way that drew blood.

"What is wrong with you?" he snarled at her.

"Oh, I'm just trying to demonstrate what it feels like to be pushed around," she said, dismissively waving her hand.

"You're an uncontrollable madwoman!"

"Perhaps once I was," she said as she walked down the stairs, not sparing him a second glance. This was less grace than it was years of experience with knowing when to walk away before she really exploded. "Never mind that escort."

It really shouldn't have surprised her. It was a universally understood thing amongst golden dragons that elven or humanoid form was the only acceptable shrink size. Her own people have been no different, except they exclusively favored elven form. Why not lupen or any other of the anthropomorphic creatures? It was racism that she'd never really thought about before the Dark Star incident.

She should have gone straight for Sailoon. While the country was no more inclusive of non-humans, she knew for a fact the royalty had an open mind. That brimming sense she had to follow the god's command wasn't strong enough to make her risk going into a devil and dragon infested mountain range.

On the other hand, the collapsing gate on their way out did a fine job by dropping blessed stones right on Filia's head. It left her in a heap on the ground, and her family and other pedestrians in a wide circle.

In sheer rage, Filia stood up and maced a piece of rubble on her tail.

The splinters fall into a most peculiar pattern, one far less arcane. A big fat arrow pointed to the Kataart Mountains, and a broken one to Sailoon. That one was surrounded by storm clouds.

"Fine!" Filia snapped at the earth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the Japanese version, Jillas refers to Filia as ane-san. This is an obsolete word for a respected elder sister, however given Filia's aversive reaction, it's more likely meant with its modern connotations : gun moll, a gangster lady. This is also called comare and gumad, but I went with gunmoll since Jillas = guns, even if the gun in that word doesn't relate.


	4. Milgazia's Arrangements

Milgazia liked nothing better than to wake into his peaceful mountain range. Across the years he'd become attached to its serene silence, to the cold blue mornings that greeted him regardless of season.

So perhaps technically it wasn't _his_ mountain range. Most of its airspace was controlled by devils, even if the earth brimmed with Ragradia's magic. Devils didn't really count at population, though. Strictly speaking, they didn't even count as persons. That made him and Azonge the leaders of the dominant species, and thus the lords. If only in his mind, this allowed him to play with the notion of a peaceful home.

He certainly didn't have it in real life. Nowadays he often woke to a cold blue morning full of roaring. With one long yawn, he stretched his wings and tail and walked out of his grove. A group of five dragons and six elves had gathered in the field. In their midst was a whirl of white strings, a Zenaffa armor commanded by one of the elves. The prisoner, an injured d lesser devil.

"Uncle!" Memphis darted across the field towards him. "Those dragons are saying this one isn't good enough, it'll combust soon and they don't want to waste time transporting it."

"Let me have a look first," Milgazia said.

The lesser devil was the typical horns and batwings variety, and wasn't even coherent enough to speak. However, one never knew with devils. As devils did not desire existence, the only thing holding them together was their sense of ego. Most devils dealt fine with captivity by focusing on revenge, but once they figured out the dragons kept them not for power, but as fuel and experiment, revenge wasn't enough for most. They combusted before they could be brought to the spot where their energy could be harvested.

This one just sat there, glaring with pupilless eyes. Milgazia had a number of questions at hand to determine its likelihood of survival. He was just about to begin asking when a peak fell down, broke through the barrier and onto the devil. Dragons and elves jumped back, some fell.

With a few wingstrokes, Milgazia cleared the dust and carefully moved over. He looked up, down, up again, then down once more.

He was in the middle of the valley. The closest peak was a few kilometers away to the east. The presence of the devil was fading away, and so was something else.

"Well ... that answers our question," one of the elves said. "Let's go home."

"Wait," Milgazia said. He approached the peak, laying a clawed hand on it. What he felt confirmed the holy guidance that had led this peak here despite the odds. "This is a god's sign."

Memphis tilted her head, squinting. "This? Really? It looks kinda ... how do I put it ... rude. It cost us our test subject!"

"Memhy! You shall not question the decision of the gods. There is a definite holy energy about this. We won't be needing that capture."

"Didn't mean to disrespect the gods, uncle. I just wasn't sure it was them talking. So what else is it saying?"

On cue, the peak exploded into an array of symbols and signs.

"We are to reoccupy the old temple and move our efforts there. It shall be fortified from prying eyes and our needs shall be met. So says Earthlord Rangort."

"Earthlord Rangort? Are you really sure?"

"Earthlord Rangort tends to be blunt like this," Milgazia said. "He is the most talkative of the gods."

"This is talkative?" Memphis asked.

"Why, off course. Earthlord Rangort is less likely to give us a short prophecy and will instead direct us in more immediate and frequent ways. Is that not evident?" Milgazia said, gesturing at the pile of rubble.

"Eheheh ... off course," Memphis said.

"Why so doubtful, Memphy?"

"I don't know much about gods, that I'll admit. I'd just imagined them to be a little more ... mystical."

The dragons all chuckled, to the confusion of the elves.

"It varies per god," Milgazia said. "Now let us dwell on more urgent matters. We will rebuild the old temple of Ragradia."

"For whom?"

That was a good question. Since the demise of Aqualord Ragradia, priesthood no longer served a purpose. The barrier had prevented any other gods from being reached, dragons were not all that interested in materialism to begin with and humans didn't come here anymore. Why bother rebuilding it?

But of Earthlord Rangort saw a purpose, so it would be done. Memphis joined him in the flight there.

East of Dragon's Peak lay a mountain with a temple ruin at its peak. It was as neglected as its god's absence implied. The surface area was entirely destroyed during the War of the Devil's Fall. Cracked walls and tiles were all that were left, no statue had been left whole and every piece of gold had been looted.

However, below the surface which had been designed for humans, there was the true core of the temple. As a lord of water, Ragradia's preferred location to manifest had been a massive underground lake. Since the last time Milgazia had been there, the entrance had collapsed.

"Memphy, please gather some capable elves and high ranked dragons who can transform. We will need to dig this out."

"I bet I could dig up this whole place with just my Zenaffa armor. There's really no need to bother the others," she said, demonstratively waving her white wings.

"Please don't," Milgazia said with a strained voice.

"Why not?" Memphis said. "It's not like this is a fight, I won't blow up anything!"

He didn't believe her for one bit.

"We should treat a chosen place with respect. A device that separates one from the astral plane may interfere with any future messages from Earthlord Rangort."

Memphis looked at the ground, dejected. "Alright then. But I wanna help guard it! The devils won't like it when we start getting help from the gods again!"

"Which is why we won't be rebuilding to upper part of the temple. They will surely try working against us once our work comes in the open. Come on, let's return to the valley."

With a twirl, Memphis was in the air. "Would you like to race me, uncle? No spells allowed!"

"Not today, Memphy."

She sighed. "Okay."

As they descended again, Milgazia looked back at the ruins a few times and couldn't help but remember how things had been before the defeat of the Aqualord. He had done his best to uphold the commands of Aqualord Ragradia, but with the sudden pointlessness of spirituality many of his tribe were aimless. They clung to guarding the Claire Bible because that was all they could do.

Memphis skipped ahead, blissfully unaware of the implications of the renewed attention of the gods.

Why Rangort? He governed the deep south, farthest from here. It would make more sense for Fire Dragon King Vrabazard or Sky Dragon King Valwin to claim this domain; especially Vrabazard. If what he had heard from Lina Inverse was not an exaggeration, then the Fire Dragon King had lost his holy order and should be in need of more people. Perhaps the travelling order was enough?

"Hey, Uncle! Look!"

Memphis skipped to a halt so suddenly that Milgazia had to veer away, lest he crash into her.

She pointed at a speck crossing the horizon. Going by flight, speed and response to air current, it should be a dragon but it was too bulky. The distance was too great for them to sense whether it was a devil, so they decided to get closer.

The dot moved lower to the vally, descending in a spiral towards one of the lakes.

It was was indeed a dragon. Female, not fully matured yet, who somehow deemed it perfectly fit to play cargo animal. On her back she not only had four foxes, a reptilian and a human boy, but also an array of luggage, which they were untying right now. Most bizarrely, she had let someone tie a pink bow around her tail.

Wait, he'd heard of a dragon like that before ...

Her cargo group climbed off to have a drink. Rather extravagantly, might he add. When the lizardman jumped in with a splash, two of the foxes did the same, and then the dragoness herself jumped up, curled to a ball and made the biggest splash yet.

He and Memphis landed on the shore just as she raised her head out of the water.

"I am Milgazia, leader of the golden dragons of Dragon's Peak. State your reason for being here."

"Oh, hello, lord elder!" she said in human tongue, rather than the draconian roars and growls he was using. She seemed confused, perhaps embarrassed as she quickly climbed out of the water and shook herself out like a wet dog. Considering the mane she had, that perhaps wasn't too strange, but it certainly struck him as undignified. Milgazia had to remind himself this was a young dragon of a the eastern clan ... and his own companion wasn't that much more dignified either. Memphis was poking at the discarded luggage with a Zenaffa produced arm.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, lord Milgazia. My name is Filia Ul Copt. This is my family : Val Ul Copt, Gravos Maunttop, and Jillas, Elena, Palu and Molly of the Jillos Jilles family."

"You are Filia Ul Copt?" Memphis asked, instantly shifting her attention.

"Yes, I am," she said. "I believe we have friends in common."

"It _is_ you!" Memphis chirped. "We traveled with Lina Inverse and Gourry Gabriev too for a while, just like you! Did she tell you about us?"

"I heard about lord Milgazia a few years ago and I heard about you in more recent letters. You're quite good with the Zenaffa armor, miss Memphis. Correct?" she said with an uncharacteristic wide smile despite her dragon form. Milgazia had always thought the more humanoid inclination of his eastern kin had been odd, but this one took the meat.

"I absolutely am!" Memphis said proudly.

"Please tell us what your business here is," Milgazia said before she could demonstrate said control.

"We used to live in Ankrabast, but the humans got suspicious of us and we had to move," the foxwoman said. "Can we stay here for a bit, please?"

"Ah. Well, I see no problem with that," Milgazia said. "However, if you wish to keep your servants at hand you will have to stay with the elves, as us dragons have no accommodations for them."

"They are my family!" Filia snapped, which took Milgazia aback for a moment. The change in demeanor was certainly unexpected, he was not used to young dragons, or anyone, treating him in such a manner. And heavens, why was she so emotional?

Before he knew how to respond, she realized on her own she was out of bounds. "Forgive me, but they are my family. We share work and money as it suits best, and we live together. Please don't call them such that implies they below me. I would prefer staying with the elves if that means I stay with my family."

"Very well."

"Everyone, let's not keep our hosts waiting. We can swim later!" she said.

Swimming in the lake for fun. What an eccentric dragon. Hopefully they weren't going to give Memphis any ideas.

The group climbed on her back again and she was about to take to the sky when Memphis begged to get a ride too so she could meet everyone, which Filia Ul Copt complied with. Befuddled, Milgazia led the strange group towards the nearest elven village.

This was certainly an unusual coincidence.

Scratch that, not a coincidence. During their travels, Lina Inverse had told him a little of her past exploits, which included the Dark Star Dugradigdu adventure and the priestess named Filia Ul Copt. The human maiden was not a teller of long detailed stories, so his understanding was scarce.

During the Dark Star incident his clan been told to sit it out, it was all arranged for by the golden dragons who served Vrabazard. The world was safe in the end, but the Flarelord's clan had mysteriously disappeared. Lina Inverse had later told him _how_ they had vanished, after a lot of prodding.

It was hard to believe his own kind could have behaved in such a way and the associated story of the genocide of the ancient dragons was even harder to accept. When the barrier had dropped, he and Azonge had made effort to get in touch with the other sacred dragons and finding the Ancients missing, they had concluded that after the war was over the devils had eradicated them for the usual reasons. Azonge flat out refused to believe what some random little sorcerer human had to say about it and firmly subscribed to the theory that she'd just been fed lies by devils.

Personally, he couldn't rule out that possibility. Xelloss would benefit from being considered the lesser evil and who knew what untruths he could orchestrate? Well, he would likely be able to get a better answer from Filia Ul Copt.

The elf village lay on a slope with reasonable greenery and was partially underground. His friend and Memphis' father was one of the elders heading the place and from the looks of it, Memphis would be happy to get them residence.

They landed at the edge of the village, at which point he said, "I heard you are a high dragon and can transform into a humanoid form."

"Yes, but ..."

Milgazia transformed, and noticed she didn't.

"Those bushes look pretty dense, gunmoll," one of the foxes said.

Ah, rookie transformers. Always an awkward situation. He'd once transformed while his clothes stayed stuck in subspace during a political convention, he knew the need for precautions.

She took the suggestion, and one golden glowing bush later, a blond woman in white cloak appeared again. Milgazia concluded the pink bow hadn't been a whim of some human child that she had indulged, for she wore a frilly pink dress below the clock.

"What's with those?" Memphis asked, pointing at the green spheres covering her ears.

She gave a little smile. "I'm not able to make my ears smaller, so I use these to cover them up. They're subspace compatible, so I can hear just fine and my ears aren't squished by them. Anyway, shall we go?"

Milgazia led the way, but Memphis lagged behind to talk with the group. Occasionally, Milgazia looked over his shoulder to watch them talk.

It was inescapable to notice how good Filia was at imitating elves and humans. Whether it was innate skill or practice he couldn't tell, but expressions shifted over her face with ease, her arms moved to gesture and she even shifted her pose to indicate tiredness.

Among dragons this wasn't necessary to be this physically expressive. They did not rely on human body language to make themselves understood, just to be less intimidating when interacting with smaller beings. Milgazia had never bothered learning.

Perhaps her unusual aptitude was because the servants of Vrabazard were more indulgent in the concept of detailed society? They had lived relatively close to the humans, after all. No ranges of mountains to separate them. He had even heard rumor they got drama classes.

On the other hand, he had _met_ them before the barrier was raised. If they had any skills in humanity they hadn't bothered with them, nor did their home betray any affinity to the culture. He could not imagine this having changed much in the last millennium.

More puzzling though was her indication she had been living in a human city, rather than with dragons.

Lina Inverse had mentioned something about her not being a priestess anymore, but to Milgazia that didn't mean anything. If she'd channeled Siephied's power after resigning, then she still should hold some status to call upon if she sought out the smaller communities on the continent.

So he asked her about it.

"There are others, true. The unofficial second holy order was migratory between the individuals and smaller clans," she admitted. "But look at my family. They wouldn't be accepted living there."

"How about your blood family? Would they not understand?"

Filia held the hand of the human boy a little tighter. "No, they would not."

As expected, Memphis was heavily involved in getting the group a place to stay. Loud nagging happened when Memphis mentioned being fired at by cannons as exercise for her armor. Sometimes Milgazia regretted the day they'd run into Naga the White Serpent, even if the woman cured Memphis's chronic shyness.

Filia Ul Copt was only a little less loud. She mingled with a bystander conversation about her beast people, correcting them on an assumption about hair loss and furniture. It looked like it would escalate for a moment, but soon she turned the conversation to a friendlier atmosphere and they were talking about frivolities and ... pottery? The female fox was pulled in and there was an impromptu soirée.

An empty house was offered to her, and she gladly accepted. It didn't seem to bother her much she wasn't invited to stay in any inhabited home, perhaps she was used to it. He followed her into the home, intent on speaking with her about the real reason of her presence, but was was hard to get a word in. The elves found it a profound curiosity, this dragon and her family, so they were taking up her time in between unpacking.

Milgazia concluded she was good with human expressions because she held an unusual curiosity and spent most of her time in shrink form. A mixture of curiosity and affection might prompt this, based on the little things that appeared from the many bags.

Cookies, bows, frilly dresses, board games, various brushes for fox fur care, cards, ointments suited for every species in her little group, colored pencils, balls of yarn. Before long, she had unwound one of those balls and was teaching elven children a game named cat's cradle.

Milgazia actually felt a little left out. He considered telling one of his jokes, but was distracted by a familiar roar. He took to the sky to go meet Azonge and his flock. His fellow leader was beelining for the village.

"Greeted, my friend. I heard you spotted a newly arrived golden dragon and led her to the elf village?" Azonge asked.

"Indeed I did."

Azonge growled deeply. "You already extended an invitation?"

"Yes. Is there a problem?"

"I met her in Gyria a few days ago. She hit me in the head with a mace."

"She did?" That didn't strike him as fitting at all.

"She was making needless drama about me pushing away one of her disrespectful beasts."

"I did not see her beast people cause any problems just now," Milgazia said. Not that he wanted to disregard Azonge, but it was known that he wasn't fond of beast people. Milgazia did not favor them either, but there were worse things.

"She's going to be problem," Azonge said. "There's something very fishy about a lone, loaded young dragon making it across these mountains without scratch, right at a time we're doing experiments!"

"Actually, less than two hours ago we got a sign from Rangort. It may be less ominous than you think. I believe this dragon is the one that was involved in the Dark Star incident. She may serve us."

"Honestly? ... well, I still think she'll be a problem. But more important matters first. What did the honorable Earthlord say?"

Memphis probably had forgotten to round up workers, now there was such a novelty around. Milgazia brought Azonge up to date, and they decided it was best to dig up the temple first, then attend to the coptish presence.

Unearthing the temple was a tedious thing to do, and Milgazia had a startlingly blasphemous thought. Why couldn't Earthlord Rangort just do this remotely, if he could throw a mountain peak?

Perhaps he was simply too busy.

**· · · · · · ·**

Word spread of that strange, eccentric dragon and her following. As the elves that had seen her confrontation with Azonge had witnessed mingled with the village, opinion of her became less charitable, so Memphis told him. Memphis herself didn't see why it was such a big deal if Azonge got knocked over a bit and still wanted to play with cannons.

Milgazia didn't get a chance to visit her until next day, by which time the Ul Copt family had already firmly settled into the village and apparently couldn't be subtly encouraged to go elsewhere. The home they'd been appointed had new curtains (pink with cats) and a thick pillar of smoke from the chimney. At his knock, a fox let him in.

Memphis was already there, sitting at a table and busily trying to convince the elder fox why exactly he should build a cannon and shoot at her. Above the hearth was a pot with arcane brew, being tended to by Filia. He couldn't say it was a pleasing scent.

"Filia?"

She looked startled, quickly stood up and rubbed her hands cross her apron. "Hello, lord Elder."

"How have are you finding your accommodations?"

"Quite alright, thank you for letting us stay here."

The pot released a small puff of green mushroom smoke, which caused Memphis to wince. "Uncle, don't stay to eat, she cooks like she's expecting devils for dinner."

Filia gave a scathing laughter, the rest of her group gave a mixture of knowing chuckles, rins and some eye rolling.

"Devils are not invited for dinner. Even if they invite themselves sometimes. This," she said with a tap on the pot, "is the product of years of labor to find out something everyone in my house likes to eat. Even the cat."

"It smells horrible until you taste it, then it's great," the human boy said.

"You're not convincing me. There's meat in it. Anyway, Jillas, don't worry about the forging. We have forges, I'll just get you into the smith cave."

Milgazia didn't like where that was going, because that fox looked awfully eager to accept the offer. Looking around for a diffusion, he picked one of the absurd amount of vases from the nearest shelf.

"How nice. You collect vases."

Worried, she shot over, gently took the vase from his hand and place it back. "Actually, I make vases and collect antiques, I sell both."

"Must've been a pain to drag all that here," Memphis said.

"I'm not leaving behind my hard earned items when I can carry them just fine," Filia said as she returned to her cooking. "Besides, I won't be depending on my friends to attend to me, we will stand on our own commercial feet as soon as we get to Sailoon."

"Excuse me, Sailoon?" Milgazia asked. She must either be horrible at reading maps if she came from the south, or for some reason she had come from the west. He chose not to comment, because her temper was more worrisome. "I heard of your conduct in regards to my fellow leader. Perhaps Sailoon is not the best place for you to live. Its family is in open pursuit of their concept of justice, which surely will frown on such vigilante behavior."

"Have you ever _met_ the Sailoon royals? No, Sailoon will be wonderful. The only reason we didn't move there was the difficult in getting a cannon company going in a place where people prefer to hire magicians for defense." She seemed to think for a moment, then pulled up her dress and revealed a mace. She tossed it in the air lightly and then caught it again. "Plus, I sell these too. They require one to know the market."

"The priestess of tea finery deals in the art of destruction too, eh?" Memphis said while dipping her finger in the brew. She almost tasted it, but changed her mind. "It's weird. Especially the antique thing. What do people want old stuff? That just means it breaks more quickly."

"Because remembering the past is important," said the human boy. He looked up sharply with yellow eyes and ... wait, were those _split_ eyes? He was too young to have mastered the transformation spell, so he couldn't be a dragon. Perhaps a chimera?

"Young lord Val is right," the orange fox said. "Monuments are educative."

Were they still talking about antiques?

"Miss Memphis, I'll have you know that the vases I deal with either are of the finest, most durable quality, or home made and even more sturdy than the classics. The art behind both vases and maces is the composition of the material and the structure with which it's put together. Preferably with some endurance spells cast on them. My wares do not just break! ... except when gods decide to use them for their symbols. That's why I'm here, there was a lot of breaking stone to harass me in this direction.

And there it was, the reason behind the coincidence of her arrival.

"Are you open for commission?" Milgazia asked.

"Huh?" For some reason this surprised her, she dropped her spoon.

"We too have received holy messages, starting last week. We are to create magic vessels to bind dark and sacred energy for the purpose of fusion magic. Unfortunately, we have been unable to produce vessels that can withstand even something as simple as an accidental squeeze by dragon claws, and the magic simply seeps out. It would appear you are our solution."

"Eh .. eheheh. Oh _no_." She sat down at the table, head in her hands. He might have though she was depressed, but she still smiled, albeit in a weird way. When she looked up, she was resigned. "We're going to have to stay here for a long time, don't we? Possibly to be part of whatever plot is going on. I'd hoped we'd be out of here soon."

"I would not call a god's intentions a plot, rather a plan. What makes you believe it will take long."

"I don't actually know how to make fusion magic vessels. I know how to do it in natura and I know how to make pottery, but that's all."

"In natura?"

"Never mind. Where are you getting dark energy?"

"We capture devils in Zenaffa armor. Their projections are extensions of their power, and thus can be transported by cutting them off the astral plane."

"Then I hope your security is thorough, because I'll have to get close to make this work. The way fusion magic works, it—"

"Mom, are you really going to help those dragons?" the boy asked. "Just because that god says so?"

"I'm not seeking to make enemies of anyone, neither gods nor devils, Val. However, most devils already are our enemies, and I don't want to add Rangort to the list. Lord Milgazia, I will accept your offer."

"Off course. I will show you the work space right now," Milgazia said. It was just a child complaining, he didn't expect her to truly argue with the boy.

"With all due respect, I have to cook dinner for my family. By the way, on the topic of payment, you can start by getting some better food into these kitchens. Especially better tea."

"But—"

"With all due respect, no buts." At that, the entirety of her family snickered for some reason.

Memphis tugged at his arm. "Uncle, let's go. I'm hungry too and they're cooking meat! Let's get something better, okay?"

Milgazia nodded, glad Memphis had forgotten about—

"Oh, and maybe you can pay that fox to play cannon ball with me. I bet he wants to, but he's told not to do stuff without payment."

Never mind.

"I'll think about it, Memphy."

**· · · · · · ·**

In this manner, the once solemn operation gained a colorful, vocal new member. A dragon who acted entirely too human.

Azonge did not like this but backed off when a geyser that they'd closed with much effort broke open, and the rain of rock arranged itself in a way that said he should not complain.

The forgers did not like this either, since the first thing Filia Ul Copt did was, when being shown the magic vessels that'd already made was criticizing their supposedly tacky design. Milgazia thought they were just fine, actually. She tapped one and it broke, which was followed by a rant on weight division and internal structure.

The devil keepers liked it even less after she told them to kill the devils inside, since putting living pieces inside the vessels meant the power was not neutralized and fusion magic would never work if the minds behind it were not in concord. She even had the insanity to complain about the way they were kept poorly. As if they had any rights.

It was unanimously agreed not to let her wander around anymore. She was given the first cleared out room in the underground ruins, so she could work in silence, alone. Clay and metal was handed to her, which she cited as inferior at once.

By the end of a tiresome few days, Milgazia dropped down on a ridge alongside Azonge. It was drizzling, but pleasantly warm anyway.

"Still fond of this whole place, Milgazia? Even now it's gone crazy?"

"It is the will of the gods," he said tensely.

Azonge rumbled with amusement. "At least the latest addition hasn't maced anyone else. I suppose she's just territorial over those foxes. Unnatural, I tell you, a dragon keeping servants. Only gods have such rights."

"I beg to disagree, gods don't care for rights," someone spoke entirely too close. The stinging aura of a devil drove through their being.

At once, Azonge and Milgazia had whipped their long necks around and were looking at the small humanoid figure that sat on the rocks behind them.

"What are you doing here?" Milgazia said stiffly, suppressing that old instinct that told him to flee right now. Both he and Azonge knew better than to move. Fleeing dragons and loose emotions only enticed devils to chase, and this was one they could not trap no matter what they tried. Xelloss was a master of astral plane shifts, he'd be gone before they ever forced a Zenaffa armor on him.

"I'm just curious at what your latest project is? You do have a project, we know that much. Would you show me around, or will I do it myself?"

They had no choice.

Azonge took the lead, quietly telling Milgazia to spare his power and get an evacuation going while he stretched the tour.

Xelloss didn't allow any stretching the tour, however, and made it crystal clear he was to be shown to the work hall at once.

The place was large and circular, with a ring of sacred water so wide a hundred golden dragons could bathe in it. At the center was a forge of holy power behind a shield, as well as their latest vessels, which were already showing cracks from mishandling and overcharged power. Azonge tried to verbally dance around the questions Xelloss asked, all the while ushering out the workers.

Xelloss was not easily distracted, he had all his attention on finding out what exactly the dragons wanted to do these these vessels. That was probably the only reason this place hadn't been blown up yet.

Azonge had no idea, nobody did.

Milgazia stood outside the hall and sent the elves and humanized dragons on their way with instructions of where to go, and whom to obey.

Somewhere in the middle of this, Filia Ul Copt casually wandered into the passageway. In scrumpled work clothing, cloth wrapped around her hair, with a case of tea bags under her arm. Unworthy of a dragon, ridiculous given the situation.

He grabbed her by the shoulder and shook softly. She yawned and rubbed her eyes.

"Oh, hello, lord Milgazia. You did put a kitchen here, but where was that again? I need to make myself some tea ... even if it's _this_."

"Filia Ul Copt, you must leave," Milgazia said with what he hoped was an urgent voice.

"Huh? Wadja mean?" she muttered, drooling a bit.

"You must take your group and go to one of the caves to hide, or leave the valley."

"Leave the valley? Azonge told me there's not much chance I get as lucky in avoiding devils out there as I did on my way here. Earthlord Rangort likely help me there."

"The devil that is here right now is far more dangerous. Please, you have to leave as quickly as possible. A battle may errupt at any moment and it is one we cannot win. All we can do is hope that we destroy the vessels before he gets his hands on them."

"The vessels don't work anyway," she said, rubbing her head. "Wait ... there's a devil here? I'm not dreaming that?"

She tapped the teabox against her head twice. As she properly woke, her eyes grew wide. Frantically she barged past Milgazia, threw open the door to the work hall and the Dragon Slayer turned around to open one eye at her. All others looked too.

The teabox dropped. Milgazia thought she'd run, but instead she fazed out of view in a golden glow and manifested right between Xelloss and the vessels.

"What are you doing here, trash?"

Eyebrow twitch.

"How nice to see you again, miss Filia."

"I'm sure. Can't I go anywhere without cockroaches on my tail?"

Another eyebrow twitch.

Milgazia grew wings to quickly cross the distance, taking her by the shoulders and trying to turn her away. "Filia, what are you doing?"

He couldn't move her as easily as he wanted to, she was far heavier than she ought to be in this form. She staggered back only two steps and didn't grow any less aggressive.

"I assure you, my presence here has nothing to do with you. As if you'd be that important," Xelloss said.

"Oh really? My ever increasing bill of property damage tells me otherwise!"

"I'll admit you provide good meals. However, I've come to investigate what these dragons have been doing," he said sharply, pointing past her at the vessels. "Magic vessels might just be of use, so I thought I'd borrow them."

"What do _you_ even need them for?" A smirk appeared on Filia's face. "Wait, I see. You lost the ability to absorb holy magic."

Xelloss narrowed that one open eye. Milgazia was no expert at reading expressions, but he knew that once since dragons did it too. There were fearful gasps all around the room, and Milgazia felt his feet sink and his mind run to possible escape routes ...

"I'll have you know that as an astral being, I'm not prone to mortal things like _forgetting_ skills. The purposes for these vessels is not merely for my own benefit. However ..."

... destroy the vessels first to keep them out of devil hands ...

"Let me guess!" Filia said as she raised a finger to her lips. "The reason I'm about to hear will be a cliche catchphrase."

Xelloss gritted his teeth. "Aren't we clever today?"

... create a diversion so the weaker dragons could get away ...

"No, we are not at all. It's night and I fell asleep at the wrong place and _you are here_! That in itself impairs my ability to function as I should. Forgive me if I'm not up to your wittiness standards."

... wake up Memphis and convince her not to fight but flee ...

"I can't comment on that, it's rather hard for me to ascertain what you're like in my absence. From what I hear from your family, there's only less yelling because you can make them shut up."

... what?

"You leave them out of this, cockroach! And don't think I can't tell you're changing the topic again! Just do what you came to do and get lost already!"

... nobody was dead yet. Perhaps this was a dream.

"Now now, it's impolite to usher guests out so quickly. Besides, these vessels come in a rather tacky in design. I couldn't possibly present these to my liege the Beast Monarch without insulting her."

Filia found her turn to twitch. "You just _had_ to say something I'd have to agree with, didn't you?"

Hallucinatory spell?

Xelloss suddenly looked content and said, "Well, it's settled then. I'll be sticking around to speed along the work. We've got our work cut out, these dragons have been doing a miserable job."

...

"What, _our work_?"

...

"Off course our work, miss Filia. I believe you'll have marginally better understanding than the dragons around here. Not that that's a hard earned feat." Xelloss tilted his head at Milgazia, causing Filia to finally acknowledge him too.

Rational thought returned at the poke at Milgazia's pride and he noticed his face had been _gaping_.

Apparently, Xelloss was putting up with this behavior because he needed Filia for something. That explained a lot ... right?

"Hmmph, it's just that lord Milgazia and the others haven't had any experience with pottery beforehand. They make quite effective Zenaffa armor."

"Off course they have no experience, they're rather dissenting towards mundane culture. Really, miss Filia, you should know better than to stick up for dragon elders whom you don't really know."

For a moment, Filia's expression turned grave.

... and she just stuck her tongue out at him.

"Really, Xelloss? That's your best shot at provoking me?" She phased back to where she'd dropped her teabox. "I'm now going to have the nice cup of tea I came for, and am _not_ getting irritated."

"Excellent, I could use a cup. Offerings have been dull today."

"You are not invited!" she snapped, and Xelloss looked terribly satisfied at this.

"My my, and I was just about to compliment you on your tea making skills."

"As if!" she called over her shoulder. "You're always complaining about ... ugh!"

He'd shifted to the astral plane.

From Milgazia's point, he could see Xelloss shift into view and softly nudge the door just as Filia turned her face forward to walk out. She smacked right into it. Her tail shot out below her nightgown, a low growl escaped her as she staggered back and the container clattered on the ground again.

Xelloss just smiled amiably and said, "Oops, I thought I'd hold the door but—"

She shot laserbreath right at his face. He withdrew just in time to avoid it.

Azonge was right, she was completely crazy. Filia Ul Copt walked the deserts of insanity, those souls lost to the world. Any moment she would be reduced to a bloody smear on the floor. What madness had possessed her to act so ferocious in face of the Dragon Slayer?

Xelloss shifted to her other side, one finger raised and a thoughtful expression on his face as he looked at the hole Filia had left.

"Hmm, I do agree redecorations are in place, but don't you think this is a little drastic, miss Filia? After all, you always tell me strangers have no business redecorating other people's houses and I highly doubt you are capable enough to install a refrigerator in that hole anyway."

"No, but I have the skills for making a decent garbage deposit. I don't think the bins of this place are up for the latest demand," Filia said, not even looking at the Dragon Slayer anymore. She was using her hands to bend the newly formed dent on her teabox as if she had absolutely no reason to fear imminent painful death.

The potential dispenser of painful deaths was in fact looking thoroughly unhappy, twitchy even ... maybe that was a good sign. The Dragon Slayer always smiled when he killed.

Which he still wasn't doing right now.

Filia restored her teabox and pulled the door back open with so much force that Milgazia could hear the hinges creak. When she pulled it close behind her, a hinge shot loose. Xelloss stood there for a second, still not smiling, then shifted to the astral plane.

The suffocating silence among him and the other dragons didn't have much room for relief though.

"Does anyone have a rational explanation for this?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Memphis appears in the novels that weren't turned to anime, she is the child of an elf friend of Milgazia and a skilled Zenaffa wielder. She and Milgazia travel together to unravel the latest mazoku plot. Lina estimates her around a century old.


	5. Filia's Materials

Stupid, stupid, _stupid_! She should have ignored him.

Filia had a track record of four consecutive years of never once losing her self control (at least not fully) and hadn't tried attacking him for seven years straight. And now this. He'd be bringing this up for years to come. "Once a dragon, always a dragon."

That was probably what had gotten her off balance. Taunting Xelloss had become a second nature, so much she just did it without thought.

And now he was here, where things were likely to go wrong much more profoundly. Things just did when Xelloss was around. She dared pray to Rangort that Val keep control, that he wouldn't transform. She hadn't prayed in years and this were not ideal circumstances, in a ruined kitchen with Xelloss floating around. He better not be blocking her spiritual channels.

She almost slipped on a patch of wet moss, which elicited a mocking laughter. "You seem to have difficulty navigating today. Perhaps you should see a doctor."

Filia counted eleven dancing kittens with teacups and realized she needed a double serving before she was calm enough to reply.

"Why would I waste a doctor's valuable time when the cause is my _natural_ devil sense responding to _your_ presence? I'm glad though that you admit you're a plague. Alas, I shall have to accept a cure is not within my grasp," she declared, dramatically throwing a hand to her forehead. There was a grating sound behind her, she couldn't help but steal a glance.

Xelloss was caught in the twitches.

"Maybe you should question why you're so vulnerable to this disease, miss Filia. The other dragons do just fine."

She said nothing this time. The reason he already knew, after all. Her son was in danger.

The kitchen was little more than a large cave, used mainly by the elves that prepared the monthly nutritional blocks for the dragons that had come to work here. Those were bland tasting cubes thrown into cauldrons with boiling water, Filia had fed on it for a while before discovering the wonderful diversity of human cuisine.

Filia filled the smallest cauldron with water and huddled close to the fire, eager to gain some warmth in the nocturnal, subterranean cold. Sounds indicated Xelloss was making a mess, but Filia forced herself not to get worked up. Instead, she channeled her irritation onto the lack of proper stove, sorely wishing for access to those little holy fire spells lost to her once she left Vrabazard's service.

The water was nearly done boiling when Xelloss had gotten too bored waiting for a reply. A swarm of cup sized black cones suddenly twirled on the cauldron's edge and around Filia.

"Speaking of the thing that we shall not discuss, you have a strange idea of keeping that secret safe, you're doing a poor job coming here," he said, voice dim and from all directions. She kept staring at the water.

"I _was_ heading to Sailoon, but I got a divine message that I was to come here," she said through gritted teeth.

"I thought the Fire Dragon King didn't give you calls anymore?"

"This really is none of your business, you know."

"Considering the massive coincidence of my work here and your arrival, I say someone is trying to make me your business."

Coincidence, sure. The messages had started right after Xelloss had left.

"I'd love to know what is going on just as much. Here I come and all of the sudden, dragons are utilizing tools? And then you show up and also have an interest in tools? This is absurd!"

"It quite is, is it not?" he chirped. "But you don't know whether they intend to use them, or have elves use them."

The water was boiling. She dipped the kettle in and let it fell, after which she placed in the tea. It was not an acceptable way of brewing, but this kitchen was so poor it didn't even have a spoon for her to use.

"That's not your usual tea," Xelloss said, turned back to human projection.

"I lost my supply on the way here. The elves gave this to me."

She would have added a rant about how she didn't like it at all, but she'd already passed her daily quota of things she agreed on with Xelloss. This quota was zero, by the way.

Once it was done, she shoved a cup towards him.

His expression soured the moment he took a sip. "This really is not acceptable."

He tossed the cup over his shoulder. Her self made cup which she had painstakingly hand painted. That one. It scattered on the floor with a sound that was more dramatic than it had any business being. Then again, Filia had seen too much break lately.

"Aaaah!" She lurched for it, which turned into a dive for the pieces halfway through. It wasn't just that the cup was broken — plenty of things broke when one shared a home with Val and Jillas — but that he had broken it. Not the first time either, off course, but it still got to her. What business did he have ...

Straightening up, she held out the broken shards. "Fix it!"

"Why?"

She pulled open the nearby untouched cabinet with her tail and showed him the supplies. The cups were simple clay half spheres that smelled of earth.

"Or we're drinking from these from now on."

She could see him weigh the benefits of one act against another : irritate her by leaving the cup broken and miss her degradation of serving him tea, or do something and get her irritation over serving him tea ... it could go either way.

After a moment, and without a word, he tapped his staff on the ground and the cup reassembled itself.

"Did he just fix something?"

Filia's head swayed to the entrance of the kitchen cave.

There stood Milgazia with a mortified expression, wide eyed Memphis close behind him.

Oh, right.

Oh, _Red Dragon God Siephied._

She should have acted like she was a terrified young priestess at the sight of the Dragon Slayer, cowering, weeping or struggling to retain a stoic demeanor. Short of actually revealing Val was an Ancient Dragon, nothing would draw as much attention as treating the devil that nearly brought the local dragon tribes to extinction as just a obnoxious neighbor.

Now she had a whole dragon clan that was terribly curious about just why she got on such a familiar base with Xelloss? Was there any way she could tell that story without mentioning Val?

"Ah, mister Milgazia, miss Memphis, would you also like some tea?" Xelloss said. "I'm assuming this blend must be your preferred flavor. You can have it all."

Milgazia's expression became a little more of the unreadable face she was used to seeing on transformed dragons.

"What's going on here, Filia Ul Copt?" he asked.

Was she just imagining that condescending tone, an echo of her order's rich array of distaste, or was he really judging her as a disgraced one? With Milgazia it was as unusually hard to tell, this already in comparison to other transformed dragons.

"A failing tea party," Xelloss said, holding up one finger. "This tea is absolutely inexcusible. Miss Filia, we ought to go shopping. I believe there's a nice little town not too far from here."

"We're not going shopping! I need to be sparing with my money,"Filia snapped before she caught herself.

"What about your blooming business?"

"Investments and banks. I only withdrew as much as I needed and knowing your tea preferences, I am not paying!"

 _Also, those banks could give away my location if I withdraw from any unusual location._ Filia was certain by now that the dragons down south were not actively affiliated with these dragons. She would like it to stay that way.

Granted, her need to counter Xelloss aside, this tea really wasn't okay at all. She could spare a little money to buy something better and get some candy and other goodies for the family. They all needed some cheering up.

"He has tea preferences. And you know them," Milgazia stated.

"Naturally. We cooperated during the Dark Star campaign, during which I discovered she sets excellent tea. This really is a rare art, you see. Off course, the right ingredients and location are also a must."

"Let me rephrase my question. What is the meaning behind both of you being here?"

"Obviously, we're going to be making magic vessels," Xelloss said. "I was sent to retrieve them, but as it stands, there is nothing to retrieve, now is there?"

Ah, so he was being liberal with interpreting his orders again. Didn't Zelas know how he was? Or were her vague orders intentional? Then there was the entirely plausible option there were additional orders Xelloss didn't mention.

"You intend to stay here? For how long?" Milgazia said through clenched jaw.

"That will depend on our progress."

"And who said I was going to cooperate? Maybe you're not a part of Earthlord Rangort's plan at all," she snapped. "I'm under no obligation to help you until I know that!"

"Oh really?"

Dumb question. There were so many ways he could sour her life, like telling people about Val, sabotaging her any of the cannon factories, buying the banks, ...

"Y-you're not afraid he's going to kill you if you keep being this disrespectful?" Memphis squeaked. Gone was the confident young elven lady, replaced by a shy, stuttering damsel. The picture perfect of how Filia had been expected to act.

Their expectations were probably so much worse than reality, or perhaps it was reality to them. She had no idea how Xelloss acted around people who didn't entertain him.

Seven years ago, by all she had known her behavior towards Xelloss had been suicidal. She had not learned yet how tolerant he was. However, at that time she had believed him to merely be a good warrior, not a demideity. Those of the Kataart Mountains knew better.

"Lord Milgazia, please be at ease. Xelloss isn't going to kill anyone, he doesn't have to. Just go with whatever he wants and prepare for irritation."

"I see. Xelloss, are the magic vessels all you want?"

"Indeed. And it appears to likewise be the will of Earthlord Rangort."

"So, something happened during the Dark Star incident that made you two figure out how to make them?" Memphis asked.

"Ah, indeed. Such an interesting story that is," Xelloss started.

Filia was surprised his answer didn't include the word secret, but it became apparent quickly that he was angling to find out just how much Milgazia knew already.

Xelloss did an excellent job of telling the absolute truth in a way that completely avoided any Dark Star Dugradigdu related things to her son, or just how integrated he was in the Ul Copt household. Knowing Lina, and perhaps Milgazia too, he got the whole blueprint out.

Milgazia knew what all dragons knew by now of Lina and her battles against the Hellmaster and the Dark Star. Milgazia had gotten confirmation for this during his time traveling with her.

Lina _had_ censored certain things. Milgazia knew nothing about Volphied's involvement, Lina probably had considered it too much of a stretch on his belief to tell about world destroying gods. Milgazia did know Xelloss had been there and had aided in name of the devils of this world not wanting another world to do the destruction. He also knew of the massacre of the ancient dragons, but seemed to have a hard time accepting it as true on Lina's word alone. The few others he had told this flat out didn't believe the Ancient Dragons had _not_ been hatching malicious things, even if they believed in a beat that the massacre had happened.

All the time, Memphis stood at Milgazia's side slowly rebuilding the tower of her confidence. Xelloss's breezy tone and congenial attitude might be to blame, or perhaps she was good at pulling herself together. Elves did not have a sense for devils as dragons did, but they did have spells that allowed them to see onto the astral plane. If she was seeing him right now for what he really was, she was doing the right kind of adapting, if not, Filia hoped she wouldn't let her guard down.

Or perhaps it was the strange elvish tea, which she had finished almost entirely by the end of the Dark Star history.

Memphis was the one to pipe up with a story of her own, namely that which explain why they were doing this project to begin with.

The official story was that now the barrier was down, devils were spreading out across the world and they had to prepare for the plot that the remaining three lords were doubtlessly hatching.

The unofficial story was that Lina Inverse was putting a dent in the world's devil hierarchy and the dragons and devils thought this meant something.

They weren't sure what, but it made them all nervous. Especially after it became clear that casualties on the side of good _weren't_ averted and there was a whole priest clan of one of the gods _missing_. The dragons wanted to unite and form a singular nation.

With a few marked questions from Xelloss, it became clear they had no idea about Lina's use of the Giga Slave or the exact details of her encounter with Fibrizo. What would these dragons do if they knew? Her own clan ... she would be marked for execution after she had served her purpose.

Ragradia's dragons were different, more likely to go out of their way and help those who needed it. They held the legacy of their god in high regard, a god who had been unusually sympathetic to the plight of the short lived mortals.

Wistful thinking, but maybe she could eventually even tell them about Val? Telling them about the Giga Slave might give a good hint of their response, after all, Lina lived with that ability without using it wantonly, while Val was a different person than Valgarv. If Val could grow up alongside dragons, it would solve so much problems.

Wanton optimism peeked into Filia's mind again, despite her more rational thoughts trying to usher it out.

Xelloss had all the explanations he wanted, and so told Milgazia what was to be done. Xelloss and Filia would work on speeding along the creation of magic vessels, he specifics would be detailed later. Without a word of protest, the elder agreed.

It disturbed Filia to be in a situation where a devil threatening a dragon into compliance, however subtly, was something that gave her a sense of safety. It was true, though. Val didn't need to be noticed. Xelloss was his usual annoying self and perhaps there was a similar plot at work as the one the gods had created against Dark Star Dugradigdu. Who the enemy was would remain to be seen.

**· · · · · · ·**

Filia returned to the village for a poor night's rest and was woken early by Memphis, who told her that Milgazia had sort of hushed up the strange events inside the ruins. Everyone off course knew Xelloss was here, but the fine details were missing. Fine details like the ex priestess of Vrabazard being 'friends' with him.

"He's not my friend," Filia grumbled as she came down the stairs.

"On the scale of devil interaction, you should fall somewhere at being injured for your insolence even if you're necessary. You're fine."

"Tss, you should see how miss Lina treats him. Xelloss is an occasional colleague," Filia said. "Miss Elena, are the children awake yet?"

"Shall I wake them?" Xelloss said.

Filia groaned. Trespassing as usual, he might have been around already on the astral plane.

"No. You'd j—"

He was gone already. There was a yelp and a sharp crack from the cellar where Val slept, causing Filia's breath to freeze. Val had mostly likely grown an oversized limb into or against something, she dearly hoped that wasn't a supporting column.

The house creaked dangerously as if in response to her thoughts.

"Is the house going to survive Xelloss?" Memphis asked.

"Eh, maybe not," Filia said. _Please don't go downstairs or offer to fix the damage._

Jillas, Palu and Gravos came thundering down the stairs, worry on their faces.

"Don't worry, Xelloss just started Val," Filia quickly said. "In his usual way."

"Hey, Jillas! Uncle gave us permission! You're allowed to use the smith shop!"

"Really?" Jillas bounded down the stairs and starting ranting about his ideas, and Memphis actually managed to keep up.

 _That_ was a swing around on behalf of Milgazia. When Xelloss and Val appeared from the cellar, she side eyed the priest while nodding at the plotting elf and vulpen. He gave an apologetic shrug and mouthed that might have been, " _It'll make nice explosions_ ".

"Val, did you sleep well?"

"Yeah, but then Evil Wizard Cone Person Thingy stepped on my wi-leg." Another breath held, but it was apparent quickly that Memphis was too busy with Jillas to notice slips of tongue. Filia remembered to quietly thank the gods the elf didn't run around with the astral plane sight spell active, it would have given Val away in an instant.

"Val! We don't call him nice things today. He's been rude tonight," she said as she led the group into the kitchen, where Elena was already preparing breakfast.

Val climbed on the table, but she pulled him off and set him on a chair. "He's gonna stick around some more?"

Filia nodded. "We're under contract together."

"Like with Dark Star?" Palu asked. Another nod from Filia.

"Hey, kid, what do you mean today? Is that a habit of yours? A not sleep drunk one?" Memphis asked as she claimed herself a seat at the table.

"Evil Cone Thingy comes by all the time," Val said with a yawn. "I always say hello, but we sometimes like him less so how I say it depends."

"That was hardly a hello," Xelloss said.

"You stepped on my ... leg."

"Knock it off you two. That is the best hello you're going to get, Xelloss. Miss Memphis, I take it you'd like to eat with us?"

"She's here to spy on you," Xelloss said with an overcoat of chipper. He opened an eye, and Memphis's demeanor cracked with a flinch.

"Eh eh, yes. Maybe. Sort of," Memphis said stiffly. "I didn't mean to offend, I just ... ehm ... "

"Don't worry, Memphy," Palu said. "I hear you've wrecked towns, so he'll probably like you."

"I don't wreck them carelessly!"

Filia couldn't suppress a smug little smile. She was going to like Memphis, as she usually ended up doing for all of Lina's friends.

Memphis stayed for breakfast, and unfortunately so did Xelloss. Woe was had.

At least this woe was adequately predicted, as Memphis explained Filia's workspace was be expanded to accommodate Xelloss and receive priority ground. They would be moved to the grand hall and a sleeping chamber would be arranged. It was a subtle hint they wanted her to work full time and get out as quickly as possible.

"Great, then you can move your pack out of this cramped house," Xelloss said. "Did you know there's a cracked founding column?"

There was a collectively groan from the family.

"Do we have to?"

Xelloss opened one eye and glanced at Memphis while leaning his staff in Val's direction.

He had a point. Filia had been keeping Val either inside or far away from the village, just to be safe. There were still elves in the ruins, but they were less likely to run into Val. Plus, if Val was close to Xelloss, he could block out view with his astral body.

"There's no playmates up there," Val said, flying by the point at mach 2. "It's only fun for Evil Cone Thingy cause he gets to feed cause I wouldn't like it."

"Well, I'll decide after I see my new workspace," Filia said. "Perhaps it'll be a lot of fun up there exploring the ruins and there's a lot more magic there."

"Maybe," Val muttered.

She'd explain him later about the potential safety issue, when Memphis was gone.

"Was there anything you wanted, miss Memphis?" Filia asked. "Otherwise I'd like to get on our way."

"Oh! Yes. Miss Filia, uncle Milgazia would like you to consult on the material to create the magic vessels from, so you'll have to pass by the import area. You have freedom to come along, right?"

What an odd question, did she think Xelloss had her on a leash or something?

"Sure. Xelloss, you watch over the children with miss Elena. Gravos, it would be appreciated if you could start packing, I'll teleport everything to the ruins once I'm back."

"Mom!"

"Right, I'll have a look around first, but I'm sure I'll convince you it's better there," she said with a wink. "Annoy Xelloss for me while I'm gone, okay?"

"Kay."

Xelloss raised a finger. "I'm here to obtain magic vessels, I never said anything about babysitting."

She gave him a hard, long stare while forcing back a raging rant at how he could afford to do this after all the trouble he usually put her though. He knew why it would be useful if he stayed close to Val when they were going to be moving out, he was just angling for a debate.

With a hard shove, she pushed her chair against the table.

"Come on, miss Memphis, show the way."

"I'd wish you a good day, miss Filia, but it would be unfair to give you false hope."

"Oh, shut up." She was not going to let him sour her mood.

**· · · · · · ·**

Filia and Memphis went to the import area by wing, landing on the south side of a tall mountain where a plateau had been carved out. Caves were used as storage.

Filia had been doom thinking when she had assumed she'd gotten the bad clay to work with. _All_ clay they imported was disastrous. Clearly these dragons had no idea what they were doing.

As Filia in dragon form prodded the drying clumps, she asked where it came from.

"We get it from the lakes nearby," Milgazia informed her.

"Riverland clay is better than the gravelly earth from these mountains," Filia said. "I'd like to get some from a flat land beyond the Kataart mountains, but I'll need help digging it up and transporting it. Since we don't know how many vessels we'll have to make before we figure it out, it should be a lot."

"Do try to make them breakable."

"Excuse me?"

"Do understand that now that Xelloss is involved, it may become prudent that we can destroy the vessels in time of need."

"Such as?"

"They may intend to use the neutralizing effect of fusion magic to break free the devil king of the north."

"Why would they only do so after all that time?"

"The seal is too strong for any of them to break due to its anchor in the magic of the land itself."

"I see."

She didn't say she would in fact make them too breakable. Not only would Xelloss notice if she underperformed, she didn't really want to. For all her misgivings on the gods, when they did plan it was for the best of the world.

The journey to Dills required an escort due to the heavy devil population, so much that Filia could not attribute her safe arrival to anything less than divine intervention, or perhaps Xelloss. Not a couple of hours passed or there would be an attack by air.

It didn't help that Milgazia's presence had an uncanny tendency to make the passing of time seem slower. He said a lot of things Filia felt were meant as jokes, but they were ... flat, somehow. Testing. Trialling. Memphis as one pointed pleaded her to just play along and pretend to be amused.

Testing and trialling proved to be a theme for the day.

There was an allegiance with Dills, so they easily got permission to dredge the riverlands. Less easily was the actual dredging.

The dragons needed a lot of instructions to properly get the clay out, and Filia herself was improvising transport techniques and dirt digging. She wasn't adequate for it and so they all returned in a most muddy fashion. Their only consolation was a better clay.

Good grief, that felt like a consolation prize?

It did, Filia realized. She was amongst dragons again, her own kind, but it was not as before. She felt she ought to enjoy their presence, but there was little to relate about now. A distance existed beyond the numbness that Milgazia's presence seemed to affect in everyone after a few hours. This distance became all the more obvious the longer the silence went on. When the group entered the ruined temple, there was no more escaping the weary glances, no more blaming them on devil swarms and muck. They were for her.

 _Did she team up with the detestable Xelloss?_ All those thoughts came in the voice of the grand elder of her clan. Once, she would have been the same, judging an outsider as herself like that.

Well, perhaps she would have been worse. Nobody here was declaring her betrayal despite having far more concrete evidence of such than her Elder had been presented with.

It didn't make it a pleasant experience, though. Filia's grudgingly admitted she didn't need Xelloss to sour her mood today.

The deeper they went, the strange the rock became. No longer simple gray, there were veins of sapphire blue cross through the walls. Filia felt the holy power increase within them.

Ragradia's hall of worship was enough to house a hundred golden dragons wings wide. Blue light poured into dusty air from only recently carved windows, reflecting weakly on the muddied basins and rivers that ran throughout the hall. No sunlight, but that of holy power.

A statue as tall as that of Vrabazard stood at the end of the hall, entirely of the intense blue stone. It was no beacon of power, but nevertheless impressed Filia. The face of a god she had never seen and would never see, knowing so brought her a sorrow.

That's when she heard the sounds. Gargling, laughing, whispered words of hate came from behind the low dust. Though drowned by godly power, Filia became aware of the dim sting of devil aura.

There, in the alcoves of this hall of worship were the prisons of the captured devils. Those few that had not yet disintegrated themselves were kept here to be drained, so her guide explained without a hint of concern. All of them were lesser devils, so low they had to posses matter to manifest. Clinging to this matter meant they still existed even here.

Some had eyes, staring at her with hate. It wasn't easy for her to ignore them, not when the devils she knew were so alive to her, both Xelloss and Valgarv once upon a time.

Pity came uninvited, and so was shame for feeling it. Both feelings she tightly wrapped up and until the fall of night she was the perfect stoic dragon. She spoke her gratitude for the arrangements, as she had been taught at the fire temple, and more covertly thanked Milgazia for not letting rumors go out of bounds. How she'd have been looked at if 'tea parties with Xelloss' had been on her resume wasn't something she wanted to know.

He said he wasn't sure how long it would be before she'd find out, if she planned to make a habit of tea with and snapping at Xelloss. Right. Though he was much younger than her Elder, he reminded her of him in that moment.

It wasn't a good day and it wouldn't be a good night either.

**· · · · · · ·**

_She ran through the green halls, chasing the center. The temple was no different in concept than other dragon temples, she knew where to go._

_In alcoves the skulls of ancients were stacked, all pieces with crude metal, their last purpose in existence to be a morbid decoration._

_All skulls were Val._

_Every so now and then the Elder would come here, she knew, imagined, realized through the power of dreams._

_A test conducted with newfound magic, perhaps he could pry out the bow of light after all. Desire, hunger, power, righteousness. He liked to see the skulls there, a memorial to a victory he took no joy in. Joy was not of his world._

_Duty warranted diligence._

_Pride warranted trophies._

_Empty sockets around a green orb laid out in the middle of the hall, because sometimes he liked to call onto the spirits of the Ancients to persuade them to unleash the spell._

_Her Elder before her._

_Xelloss, the devil from the stories, he was behind her._

_She didn't matter and her Elder didn't care if she died, said it with more words than he'd needed to. The skulls around him turned dark, eyes alight with old power. Her Elder was the least haunting._

_He had no remorse._

_He did have a flair of using the dead as decoration._

_And the dead, every time he summoned them, they would see their own skulls around them._

_Holy dragons should not be able to be sadistic._

_When she died, he burned the flesh off her skull and set her as a new socket for the summoner's orb._

_She was the heretic._

**· · · · · · ·**

Her fancy clock was close to midnight, she wasn't likely to be caught. The medium in charge of the crystal ball network was vast asleep, as she would have been if she hadn't woken up in sweat.

Really, this wasn't such a big deal even if she did get caught. She was just borrowing it, she'd bring it back. There'd be some difficulty saying why wanted to borrow a crystal ball in the middle of the night.

Maybe she'd just blame that on not wanting Xelloss to know she spoke to Sailoon, and he was gone for the night (she strangled her curiosity, tied it to a rock and threw it in a frozen lake). It _was_ true she would rather have this conversation _without_ Xelloss around, the person she spoke to was simply someone not from Sailoon. Luna had indicated she didn't want anything to do with the dragons, and Filia figured they might exploit it if they knew about the contact.

Quietly, she slipped into the medium room, then out again. Once she was at a spot the glow and energy of her teleportation wasn't likely to draw attention, she returned to her new room. It was still messy due to the recent move (again) but manageable enough once she found a vase with the right top to hold the ball.

She needed a minute or five to steel herself.

Luna Inverse was ... tough when she didn't like something you did. She didn't yell, she didn't rage or rant, but there was something about her that made one feel like they were stripped naked in front of a crowd.

Truth be said she had avoided contacting Luna about the change of plans exactly because she knew she'd be put on the block for it.

To her surprise, Luna was awake enough to answer quickly. There wasn't even a grudging remark about her time.

"Filia, anything up?"

"Well, you see ... I got a signal from Earthlord Rangort to go the the Kataart Mountains, got commissioned to help create magic vessels, Xelloss arrived after a few days, and now we're going to work together."

"Aha ... run that by me again. More details."

This was going to hurt, but she obliged anyway. She wouldn't have called Luna if she wasn't prepared for it.

"Okay. Got it. Val and his loving marriage with secrecy is at jeopardy due to the sudden return of an old non-flame responsible for the death of his parents, while the mother is haunted by that tragic crime she didn't actually do and memories of her mentor figure betraying her. Meanwhile she's conflicted over the presence of this tall and dark but sadly not brooding man who keeps popping up. Goody, this makes my subscription to the soap club redundant. I'll file to be unsubscribed."

In Lunarian, that translated to sympathy. Probably.

"Miss Luna, I know you believe I should just get up and leave, but perhaps if I stay and cooperate, it will serve Earthlord Rangort to protect Val. Even if those dragons that attacked him were not directly sent by a god, they were hostile. Nothing better than a god on my side can protect Val."

"Tss, tss. Gods. Dash your hopes before they do, at least you'll get to keep the pieces. Not saying you should scram, though. Clown's there on orders of his boss, so the defective devils are at play. Which faction you think is more likely to turn your son into a macabre artwork?"

Don't trust the gods that won't let you know them, better the devil that does. Filia hadn't forgotten.

"Now let's go over the decision to go to the Kataart Mountains in the first place. That was such a wise move, Filia," Luna said.

"Miss Luna, I'm not being controlled by the gods. It's just ... you don't know what it feels like for a dragon to be near holiness. It makes us want to follow it." The last she spoke very quietly. In front of Luna Inverse, part of Siephied yet all human and proud of it, it felt like a shameful thing to say.

"You let those things in your mind when you channel them for directions. Are you sure they don't rig the door when they left?"

"I don't feel very different than before I became a priestess, miss Luna. I can't say much else."

"I can. Ever wondered why the fragments of Siephied and Ragradia attached to a human soul and not dragon souls? Maybe the fragments did, once, but those souls don't last."

"Let's hope that's not the reason," Filia said. She'd become weary of saying she was sure of anything in this world.

"I'd feel better having certainty, but Rangort can give me a hard time too if I mess with its plans. Come to Zephyria once you're done, I want to check whether you were tampered with."

"Miss Luna, don't you think you're trying to see doom a little too hard?"

"Nah, I don't. The worst you can lose in the world is yourself. You'd being willing to die for some people, but think about it for a second. It's just your life you'd lose. If you lose yourself, you might not be the kind of person to care anymore about those people."

"I ... " Filia didn't know what to say to that. The Sages and Knights, organic and astral; identity wasn't the same for them.

"What exactly do the dragons want with fusion magic? That shit's scary, you know. It can be controlled without spells, that's some mighty mental component to it. Want the dragons and gods to have that?"

"I don't believe the dragons would misuse its power. We've never been out for conquering lands and I honestly don't believe mister Milgazia and mister Azonge have such intentions."

"Side effects happen. You got a kid out of death. A kid clean of his former life, right? Mostly anyway."

"Don't. Not here. Let's talk another time."

"Better be soon. What magic's in the place?"

"The power of the Claire Bible and the remnant of Ragradia," Filia said. "I don't think the power of Lei Magnus has much influence."

"Get familiar with it."

"I will. Goodnight, miss Luna."

"S'morning here."

"Oh really? It's that late already? Even with the time difference, that shou—"

"Filia. Clowns. Clocks."

"Hnnnngh ... _off course_ he did."

"That's not your crystal ball, is it?"

"No," Filia said, dropping her head to her hand and trying to figure out how to explain this to the Elders.

"Gonna be fine. In fact, my little sister tends to mention funny details in her letters. Apparently, Milgazia knows a spell from the Beast Monarch. Ask him to teach you. It can't hurt to have some dark magic at hand."

Filia managed a smile. Luna suggested a potentially touchy fact to be used for blackmail. Well, _that_ was something Filia didn't mind doing if it was for the right reasons, or at least non-harmful reasons.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Don't trust the gods that won't let you know them, better the devil that does," is something Luna told Filia during the chronologically first fic I've yet to finish writing (and probably won't ever finish anyway, knowing my attention span).


	6. Zelas's Chain

Zelas served purpose with a topping of devilish blasphemy. Today's restaurant was the kingdom Zephyria, a reeking place that was a good for committing suicide if one were of the criminal bend, or at least get free vacancy and board behind bars.

Sight across the astral plane was often more limited than an open physical space, but Zephyria downright absurd. White magic littered the astral plane like bat droppings in a cave, even one as keen and powerful as Zelas had difficulty seeing. Worst yet, she would be seen all the easier by the Eternal Queen.

To reach Zephyr City she had to rely on physical landmarks, so she flew high and withdrew her expanse as tightly as possible. Near the city was a long stretch of forest, she dropped down near a town. There was only the slightest ripple in the magical flow. Satisfied with her lack of impact, she hooked her arms behind her back and walked.

To the east, Zephyr City cast itself against the young dawn, a tall silhouette filled with stars brighter than in the sky. A city of spells, yet ironically not the capital of white magic. The Eternal Queen surrounded herself with shamanic magic of all kinds, forging an kingdom on the willing backs of spirits as much as on humans. In the shadow of her might lay idyllic towns.

Blind eyed, Zelas passed the old forest where nymphs were ever watching so no predator harmed humans, passed orchards with ever healthy grapes curtsy of a pact with fayfolk. The hidden folk paid mind to humans and honor to the queen. No great crime would go unseen under the eyes of the Eternal Queen.

Zelas snorted at paradise. Convenient for the humans _now_ , but if Liliane ever died the queendom would be left not knowing how to balance itself with natural order.

"Any misgivings, lady?" An early farmer leaned across an obnoxiously neat stone wall, eggs he'd gathered still in hand.

She would have liked to spell out her many misgivings with this land, but that would be useless. Instead, she smiled as she sauntered up.

"Misgivings with myself, mister farmer. I am to seeking to challenge the Knight of Siephied to combat, but I'm afraid I lost my way around here after taking a short cut. Please tell me where I am," she said.

"The Knight, eh, not just a knight? Figures. Didn't the parents give you a map?"

"Unfortunately, I have not had the honor to meet the Inverse parents. I was recommended by a man she fought at the time she was moving out of their home, he was aware of no such custom."

The farmer frowned. "She always has her challengers spend money in her parent's shop before accepting, that's common knowledge. Was it really a man you spoke to?"

Oops. Zelas could concoct a web of lies to make herself seem credible, but didn't have the patience. Liliane saw dark magic used on humans, but Zelas could make do with simply warping a tiny bit of space to deprive the heart of its oxygen.

Clutching his chest, the human fell to his knees. She returned oxygen just before Megiddo caught him.

"Tell me where she lives, please."

Horrified disbelief tinting his miasma as he looked up. Tasty. Would he already be considered devil nature, or was he trying to figure out what arcane spell she used?

"Sh-she's not on the official records, she's got this cottage over at Ineuris Wald's north corner, near the Maral village. Please don't—ghhhnnn"

She savored the moment he thought he'd die. There was no need to kill for one to harvest the emotions of dread, honestly. He fainted by lack of oxygen, and Zelas conjured the eggs he'd dropped back together in his basket. Let him assume he dreamed it all.

If Zephyria's Arcadia was an insult to natural balance, Luna's queendom was a kick in the groin.

Luna's home lay less so at the edge of the forest than it had dug into it. In theory, it was a quaint little cottage surrounded by a fitting rose garden and neat lawn, in practice it a prison compound. Fairies addicted to holy power lived in the hedges, working to keep everything neat with a disturbing rhythm for such freeborne spirits. The very flow itself was tamed into canals.

Flying from below her parent's wings seemed to have cut her loose from her last restraints, she now forged the world around her as clay. Oddly enough, this was no choice she had made on her own. After that little incident at the Eternal Palace, she'd been kicked out of Zephyr City.

Ironic, consider it was because of Liliane's titles and Luna's membership that it had become popular to refer to hosts of godly power as Knights. However, Luna was nothing more. The new Knight of Siephied was really young, a mere 26 years old. 27 years ago the previous incarnation had committed suicide, one more Knight who had gained longevity before learning loneliness.

There were no legends of Siephied Reborn, as there once had been. Not Siephied's Chosen, not Siephied's Child. Just Siephied's Knight, a title shared with other sorcerers. Luna had never left Zephyria to be either hero, mercenary or grave robber. Evil was only her problem insofar it bothered her simple life. How was she like this when her parents and sister had the blood of adventure? Was she as tamed as the flow around her?

Zelas leaped over the hedge and was instantly beset with by a guard of three trolls. They pointed spears at her that were designed more with elegance than with lethality in mind, complimented with cheap armor that couldn't be conceived useful even if one assumed their employer did not know trolls regenerated.

"Stop! In name of lady Luna!"

"I have already stopped, mister Troll."

"Eh ... right. Now what?" They shared confused looks.

"Now you may sleep."

Zelas astrally invoked their innate darkness. They started snoring before they even hit the ground.

The garden revealed a flippant yet militant vibe. All plants were in neat rows and the lawn was mowed perfectly, yet color coordination was far to be sought and many plants had no business standing at one another's side. Tacky lawn gnomes completed the disorderly order.

What was missing was the vibration of any sort of holy power from the house even as Zelas touched the walls. Luna was not home.

There was one other, however. The scent of werewolf was thick in the air, yet mingled strangely with troll. Curiosity got the better of Zelas and followed it.

On the other side of the house there was an stable sized doghouse, to which a hybrid of troll and werewolf was chained. He was asleep, but only lightly. When Zelas stepped onto the peddle path, his head shot up.

"Greetings, mister ..." She hesitated as she read the name printed over the doghouse entrance.

Spot.

He didn't even have any spots.

Now this was just unreasonable. Such a strong creature tied up like a common house pet, a vanity to show off? There was having fun with weaklings and then there was wasting potential.

"What is your _real_ name?"

He hesitated, lips slightly curled up.

"Tell me yours first. What are you to get past the trolls without me hearing anything?"

"Tell me, mister, are you a dangerous criminal who can't be trusted to go free without disturbing order?"

He growled lowly. "You'd not know anyway if I told the truth or not."

"Creatures that lie are tickled by their own brain. I can taste the subtle change in their miasma when it happens."

His fur rose and aggression rolled off of him as he realized it.

"What does my past matter to a devil?"

"Your answer will decide how I will treat the lady who chained you up. A creature like you could be so much more useful, I won't think highly of a person who acts on whims."

"I used to be useful, it got me nowhere."

"Then perhaps your leader of once upon a time was not much better than the one you have now. Who was he or she?"

"Maybe I worked on my own."

Zelas shook her head. "No, that's not quite right. If you were the sort to be useful only to yourself, you would not be in chains you could break if you desired such."

"Hmm. You'd know my former master. Lezo, the red priest."

"Oh my. It is ironic that you come from the service of a host of Shabranigdu into that of the host of Siephied's corpse. Would you care to share the story?"

The memory must have upset him enough that he overcame his reluctance to talk.

"I was defeated by the defecting members of my team, who were loyal to that damn Zelgadis. I wandered off, unable to properly heal due to malnutrition. I must have collapsed, because I woke somewhere in a yard I had not seen before. She saved my life."

In other words, Luna had known nothing. She did this without real meaning.

"Yet denied you your name and agency. May I speculate she simply favors pets and did not act out of altruism? I hear she likes cats too. What do you owe her, that you don't try to leave?"

"I already told you, my life!"

Zelas smiled wryly. "If you wish to pay her back, perhaps you ought to do so in a way that suits you better than this."

"It's none of your business," he growled, rising to full height. The chain just barely allowed him to stand straight.

"You may be right about that. Well, thank you for your answers, if you'd please indulge me one more question? Where is your lady now?"

Her only answer was increased tension and an adorable attempt at a deadly glare. Zelas idly tapped her fingers on her hip. "I shall find her regardless of your silence, but the sooner, the better my mood, mister Not Spot."

There was a thunderous crash in the forest to the west.

"Never mind, I have my answer," Zelas said, turning on her heel in one graceful arc. "Is she trying to impose order on the forest? She may have great power, but that she never will manage."

"She's expecting guests."

"Oh? How nice," she purred. "Let's see whether I can guess before I ask her."

Guessing was very easy. As Zelas wandered into the forest, the flow thickening in rivers towards one point of holy power. A beacon was being set up. Most likely, Luna was expecting the Ul Copt pack to teleport in and did not want her prim and proper home wrecked by any full sized dragons. Was Filia's pack planning to escape Kataart, or had it been Luna's idea to prepare?

There was a general scarcity of details irking her lately. Even today, she was going on a trail of grains, most of them from the reports of Xelloss. He had traveled at her side for the short journey of Project Shabby Host 3.

After meeting Luna again, Filia had stopped feeling guilty over not praying anymore, replacing her zeal with trepidation towards the gods. What had she learned?

Liliane and Luna did not get along very well, with spite from Luna's side and a condescending disappointment from Liliane's side. Why exactly?

Xelloss had also told her that Luna was aware of the astral side, but the clarity of her sight was no better than the indistinct spells of elves. Likely, Zelas would not be able to hold a whole conversation with her purely on the astral plane, while former incarnations had been able to sink deeper into the astral plane.

How had Luna reacted when the barrier came down and the gods could contact her? _Had_ they contacted her at all? Had she?

Her human form was visible before the shroud of vibrating magic allowed her to be seen astrally. She stood in an expanding meadow, directing trolls on clearing out trees. Aside of her was what appeared a simple stone hill, but it was embedded with a magical circle that found root in Luna's power.

Luna was beautiful by human standards, but had the air of one who didn't care. Casual loose clothes, bangs so low they covered eyes and her lips in a stiff line, she wasn't inviting anyone but those with a liking for mystery.

Zelas stifled a chuckle when the familiar sight of Luna's lovely mystery emerged. With regular souls, the form of the astral body conformed to that of their physical shape. Facial features and hair were details lost, but something like a missing arm and general build were reflected. Anomalies existed, Val's astral body was brimming with barely contained power that fluctuated every moment, but nevertheless his human form was visible underneath the feathers.

But Luna Inverse, she was a true chimera. The outline of her physical body was buried below a contorted astral form far larger than herself. A skinned, headless neck hang aside her and the four burning tendrils coiled without directing. Bony wings stuck out from the main body, which looked like a stretched ribcage with rotting muscles across it.

What a fate for the highest god of light, to have become a corpse sown to a mortal soul. Being Luna Inverse had done it no favors. A power such as this would have an advantage in this place of strong flows, but she noticed nothing.

What a disappointment. Zelas had known prior incarnations that had honed their potential to the point of sensing better than actual astral creatures. She deliberately stepped on a branch way too loudly, hurling herself up at the same time Luna's head whipped around.

Zelas flew across the clearing and landed on a high branch on the opposite side. Below, Luna ordered her trolls to fan out. Smart as a move, yet uncaring. She was vastly more powerful than her trolls, she did not need them here. Sending them away was the most reasonable.

A poor sense of pack added to her profile on Luna. It wasn't unexpected, considering her sister lived in fear of her.

Passing over the trolls, she jumped right behind Luna. The human whirled around at once, power flaring in a burst of white flames as she sensed what her opponent was. She drew her sword, filling it with force.

"Perhaps a friendlier welcome is in place, lady Siephied. You have no idea what you are up against," Zelas said, placing her hands on her hips and making a point of looking unimpressed.

"Heard that before. Let's get this over with," she said. No passion, no thrill, just irritation and the seed of fury. No fear or worry either, Zelas noticed. Xelloss was correct, Luna was really near sighted on the astral plane.

"I'm not here to fight you, lady Siephied. I'm here to tell you congratulations, you got the job."

"Ah, one of those morons who think I could take an immortality pledge. Waste of time," Luna said. "And stop calling me that."

Not would, but could ... she'd take it if she _could_? Perhaps she had already tried.

"I fear you're wrong. Why would I waste my time on such when I know as astral chimera, you could easily make yourself immortal?"

Luna gave off a sharp bitterness. Bullseye.

"So what _do_ you want?"

Hmm, what exactly? Something to make this go smooth, something to entice her to silence rather than dropping a note to the dragons or Liliane.

_Perhaps she had already tried._

Knights had an easier time than Sages in keeping their body young and healthy due to their level of innate magic, but their knowledge was limited and they needed someone to teach them. With the only Sage available being Liliane, it had been hosts of Shabranigdu whom had taught prior Knights. Laust had not educated her, Liliane had not either so it appeared.

How annoying must it be for Luna to be living right under the Eternal Queen and knowing she herself would die within a century.

"I want to hire you."

"Get off my land or I'll destroy you."

"Honestly, lady Siephied, I—" She twisted aside to dodge the wave of white fire thrown at her. "... will be gone all the sooner if you listen."

"No devil's got anything of interest to me," Luna said, jumping ahead with surprising agility. Zelas backflipped out of the way and landed on her toes, taking back two steps. Luna followed with one step, cautious but still reeled along.

"You say we can have no conversation as long as you can move to fight? I see, lady Siephied."

Luna gave a lopsided smirk, the obnoxious kind of an arrogant person who believes they got a fool to grasp something simple. Zelas wanted to claw that smirk off of her face, but that would be pointlessly violent.

Instead, she went for something a little more subtle.

One of Zelas's favorite forms of hunt was to reel in predators by feigned to be weakening prey, all the while chipping away at their defenses.

Dropping her human projection, she took the guise of a ragged shaman with a bleeding deer skill in place of a head and a bone staff in its hands. It was a form of her young days when spooking tribes had still been a fun pastime, hardly used now save for prey whom she wanted to unsettle. The form moved like a corpse, jerking unnaturally and just the right kind of wrong to be in the uncanny valley.

Luna knew what her own astral body looked like. She was a cold fury, but below her anger it unsettled her far more than the usual human because it reminded her of the mirror. It unsettled her, making her just a little too emotional in her combat.

Zelas played along in the battle dance by giving the illusion of an equal fight, feigning to be injured and driven closer to the trees. There was a trick to dispersing her power across a wider area, poor limited Luna only saw a core of power and never realized how much strength was before her.

When they were deep enough into the dark forest, Zelas began to trick her into leveling trees. Not because Zelas needed it, but because it annoyed Luna and her sense of order. Letting one fake wound gush darkness, she fell back against a tree. Luna went for the kill, burned sword impacting just as Zelas jumped away. The tree behind her took the brunt.

Rinse, repeat, bring the human off her balance. By the time seven trees had met this fate, the sun's first rays were crossing the forest threshold.

"You're making a mess out of my project," Luna said evenly, in spite of her building emotional feast.

"Am I? I beg to differ, Lady Siephied. If I may say so, you could pay off a country's debt with the amount you're underestimating the size of an Ancient Dragon."

" _Don't_ call me that," she snapped after a startled, to Zelas's disappointment. She had hoped Luna would try to find out how she knew about Ancient Dragons.

"Well then, I shall call you lady Corpse."

Strike once, dodge then, curl away next. Luna's anger was delicious, she wielded it as a shield of concentration rather then being hindered by it. It would have been lovely if Zelas hadn't known it to be so wasted.

By now, Luna was started to realize her opponent was holding back. She stopped advancing and lowered the sword a little.

"What is your name?"

Zelas let her skull break away. On the astral plane, Siephied's corpse jerked.

"What did you want to talk about anyway?"

Zelas still said nothing.

"Cat got your tongue?"

Oh, that was just too good to pass up. She left the shaman form and drew together into another projection, all power focused on a small white cat with orange spots sitting on a fallen tree. On the astral plane however, she converged into her true form, that of the bright winged werewolf.

Behind her low bangs, Luna's eyes widened as she realized who she was looking at.

 _Now_ she felt fear and Zelas purred.

For one as powerful as Luna Inverse, there were not much chances to practice true courage.

Role reversal? Delicious for Zelas, unknown to Luna.

The human turned tail and ran for the beacon.

"Lady Corpse, do you truly wish the Beast Master to _hunt_ you? Even if you active the beacon, the Sage of Ragradia will not be able to make a difference, and who else would you call?"

Luna didn't respond more than throwing up a force field around herself.

Zelas jumped off her perch, pushing her true form onto the physical plane. Luna was not quick enough by a long shot. A clawed hand dug into her back and with a sickening crack, the human was slammed against the ground.

Zelas hovered her jaws near Luna's head and said, "Now would be a good time to speak, don't you say?"

Luna didn't say anything.

She didn't move much either.

One of the trolls that still were around said, "Eh, dark lord beast master, I think she's unconscious."

Well, this was embarrassing. Zelas been instinctively hunted on her knowledge of prior incarnations, who had a lot more experience with automatic regeneration and using their power to strengthen their body. Luna was as breakable as a human underneath her primitive shield. Zelas had gotten carried away as if we she were a pup.

She stood straight, brushed some leaves off of her dress and flexed her wings. "It'd be much obliged if you and your companions kept this little incident silent, mister Troll."

"Eh ... what silent?"

Bless Shabranigdu for stupid trolls.

Zelas slung Luna over her shoulder, not willing to risk a warped space and tip off Liliane. At an easy jog, she reached the edge of the forest. She could have flown to the cottage, but to be contrary she just walked through the hedge and door, not moving aside any wood in her way. When she dropped Luna to the floor, the act came with a shower of hedge and wood splinters.

Off course, Luna's house was orderly. The garden was worse, but Zelas still found nothing to admire inside. There was a lot of practical treasure like an ebony coffee table inlaid with gems, a rack of expensive wine and a collection of colorful books. A picture of her family hung on a wall and there was a mace with a ribbon around it in a corner. Nothing really matched, the only universal trait being cleanliness.

Everything was square and linear, there was reason but no rhyme. With a gleeful look, she flared her wings and wagged her feline tail as she walked through the place, knocked over select furniture and breaking glass. She went out the other door without opening that one either, allowing her to emerge of the garden side with the doghouse.

The hybrid was on was already on his feet and snarling, the marks in the sand indicated he had tried getting loose. When Zelas approached, he slashed at her. She just grabbed his arm and twisted it behind his back. A bone broke, but he could regenerate.

Her actual target was the chain that bound him. She snapped it off the doghouse and cut the collar with her nails.

Pushing him away, she said "I would say it is your choice to run or stay, but I taste it to be useless. Ah well, go ahead, she's inside."

He rushed past her, leaving Zelas the time alone to summon a sliver of red stone. She pushed it in the iron collar, along with a custom enchantment.

Inside, the hybrid had set straight the couch and laid Luna on it. She commended him for not being stupid enough to try to flee. Anyone who could deal with Luna could catch up easily.

Siephied's power was already stirring to heal her damaged ribs and spine, but she wasn't awake yet. At leisure, Zelas closed the collar around her neck. The hybrid watched her the entire time, but did not interfere.

This done, it was time to ransack the kitchen. She turned into her human form, the aristrocrat this time, for the benefit of taste buds. Having done so, she claimed the dinner room table, a stash of liquor, pretzels and wine soaked peaches. Luna had excellent taste in food, Zelas had to admit. Really good. It soothed down her irritation a little.

Luna regained the ability to speak around the time Zelas was halfway through the pretzels. She shot up only to cringe as the dark power in the collar flared. Both her hands tried to grasp it, but were burned.

"Don't bwodder, wady gworps. I'm swongur den you, you dun standa chanef breaging d' spell on it," Zelas said from the kitchen table.

Barely visible through her thick bangs, Luna narrowed her eyes. Not at Zelas, but at the messy house and the crumbs on the table.

"You're not gonna clean that up, are you?"

Zelas stopped chewing. She had expected a less blasé response from a person waking up to find their home taken over by a lord of darkness.

"Unfortunately, you are in no position to worry about trivialities."

"Was beating the shit out of me a triviality too?"

"Yes, off course. A rather relevant one, if I may say so. You _are_ finally sitting still and listening."

Luna swung her legs to the ground, leaned back and spread her arms across the back of the couch. As if she were still lord and master.

"What'ya want?"

"First of all, your attention. I thought you might like to know that my people have decided that your little sister is an impassable obstacle to world destruction. The little lady keeps getting involved in such grand matters, it is difficult to ignore her. Do you get letters?"

"Our parents do. I don't care." Zelas tasted a lie, but only a mild one.

"You should ask them about it."

"Why? Lina can take care of herself."

"Can she really? This is the first time she is not a tool but the prime target, Garv non withstanding. He was limited in resources."

"I've been a prime target my entire life long. I have a hard time believing she'd be a bigger problem." Still a tasty lie, she _was_ worried.

Zelas laughed, but it was a cover for deeper dissent.

" _Bigger than you_? Do not flatter yourself. We allow young devils to bounce off on you to see whether they grow wits quick enough to deserve more complex missions than cannon fodder. Now miss Lina, she is a true problem. Give her another 10 years and she shall have burned through the remaining three pieces of Shabranigdu as well. All we devils would have is an ice lolly."

"Get to the point."

"I can offer you something you want, which is up for your consideration off course. In exchange, I would like—"

"Good grief, can you talk normal? You use so much words when you can just say, like, _let's trade_ or _you stink_."

Zelas gritted her teeth and did her best not to rise to the bait.

"My point is that I want you to search and find your sister in order to ensure her survival."

"Hmm. Ask Rangort."

"Earthlord Rangort is unfortunately detained in hell," Zelas said. "And even if they were not, we don't want the other gods to know we are seeking out miss Lina and we especially don't want the devils to know. Anything Earthlord Rangort or I do to find her will catch attention. On the other hand, you have a credible and unremarkable reason to ask a god to find your sister."

"Ask the bubbly one from Sailoon if you want credible. She's Lina's best friend."

"Unfortunately, they are already involved in the plan in other conspicuous ways."

"Are they now?"

"Would you like to know?"

Luna shook her head, and this time she meant it. "What's the offer? My life?"

Zelas abandoned the pretzels to pick up the end of the chain, playing the end between her fingers. "I would not offer such a drab thing. Hunting you down would draw too much attention, should you choose to double cross me. Make no mistake, this here is security, but I find my associates cooperate better if they work for a reward."

"Luna, don't listen to her," the hybrid said. "Just earlier she tried to convince me to ditch you."

"Oh, did she?" Luna crossed her arms. "Don't worry, Spot. I know how devils deal, especially her organization. Sneaky little bastards who pays theirs debts, but only in the ways they sees fit. Maybe she thinks rewarding me is 'spicing' up my life or something."

Zelas couldn't keep from growling. That little brat not only accused her of duplicity, she dismissed the actions of her priest as worthless, and acted as if he were just an extension of her. As if she'd failed to put work into his individuality.

"What? It's true, isn't it? Pretty easy to figure out how the devil wolves tick, once you met one."

"Your power may be great, but your wisdom leaves a lot to be desired if you think you're a master of minds. What is next, will you be telling me your mental age is so much further than your physical one?"

"You threw over the most fancy furniture, but not the table or the wine rack. Obvious method to your chaos, what you like stays whole. I'm not something you like."

With a few steps, she stood before the couch and leaned over, one hand against the wall. Turning her eyes to slits and spreading bloodlust through the air, she brought the human back on edge.

Luna was a quick learner. Fearful, but with enough self control to not let it show, save for the hairs rising in her neck. A true Inverse alright.

"Ruining things for the sake of ruin is ridiculous, but your farce of a home is a ruin in a different way. Yes, it disgusts me as do you," she said. "You are by all means and measures the most powerful human on this planet. You could hold your own against most devils, you could wipe out armies on a whim. Start a war, end a war, build an empire. Yet you are here without aspiration, gathering together nothing but this disturbed order. Off course you'd accuse another of meaningless payment?"

Luna tilted her head back so that her hangs fell away. Sharp red eyes glared back at her.

"You exist just to destroy all yet you preach to me about meaning? I squander a power I did not ask for and I enjoy life. What about it?"

"But you won't be doing that for long, now will you?"

Luna's emotional miasma betrayed the hornet's nest that Zelas had just set on fire. She decided to add some oil.

"Afterlife hardly was comfortable for anyone in the past five thousand years. Being able to hurl yourself into Megiddo despite your astral identity not having faded? Many wished for that under Fibrizo's rule."

"Is that supposed to make me feel better about my incoming cessation of existence? I chose nothing! Whatever past versions of this soul did has nothing to do with me!" Luna snapped. On the lower layers of the astral plane, Siephied's corpse roared.

"That is supposed to make you think about what you really want. See, Earthlord Rangort is rebuilding hell into elysium. You would not enjoy it at all, though. This god only plays nice, but only to those who behave. At best you are indifferent, and at worst ... well, you had a sapient creature chained up in the backyard."

"Hmm."

"I can arrange it so that you will get into elysium."

"Ah, I see. If I decide to stay dead, you avoid the risk that the next Knight of Siephied might actually do shit. Must have hurt, learning the Knight of Shabranigdu was so damn heroic."

Zelas leaned back and grinned. "You catch on quick."

She didn't catch on right, off course. Zelas felt an idle regret, how much less annoying would today have been if she had _not_ killed the heroic incarnations of Siephied's fragment?

"How would you be able to arrange that with Rangort? How did you even get a god to listen to you?"

"Were you not there, at the fight against miss Lina's third Shabranigdu? You must admit my priest did some suspicious things for a devil. In fact, isn't he doing suspicious things right now over in Kataart?"

"Huh ... I just thought he was going mad. You all go mad when you figure out the fallacies of the system."

She thought for a long time. Zelas didn't move as she waited.

"... Okay then. I'm in. Now get this thing off."

"I shall have to decline. Should you choose to double cross me, that is my method to give you a quick ticket to reincarnation." She tossed the chain in Luna's lap.

Luna stood up slowly, eyes no longer visible. Zelas was a head taller than the woman, yet it felt like it didn't matter when on the astral plane, Siephied's corpse dangled before her. Then Luna pushed past her.

"Spot, start packing," she hissed. "We're going to have a chat with Valwin."

That confidence answered at least one question. She was wise enough to avoid Vrabazard, but Luna had _not_ spoken to the gods or she would be far more weary of the idea that Valwin might answer her.

Not that it mattered. As long as Luna was on the move.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As this was brought up elsewhere, about Luna's power level : while it's ridiculous to consider word of god about the novels to apply to anime canon, I did take it as inspiration for Luna's power level, since in this case it doesn't directly contradict anything. Luna is about as strong as Xelloss, maybe a little more. Retainers like Zelas and Garv are at a much higher level, and Garv wiped the floor with Xelloss regardless of how smart Xelloss was, so Zelas can wipe the floor with Luna. 
> 
> Luna in this fic has a reasonable understanding of power levels of the god tiers because three years ago, she traveled for a bit with Lina and her group, which at the time included Xelloss and Filia as well. During this, she had her first encounter with an astral creature flat out stronger than her, and she wanted to know more about who else could give her trouble. Lina wasn't willing to teach her Ragna Blade, which is just about the only powerhouse spell that can dent retainers, and even that's not enough. So Luna has a pretty good idea that meeting Zelas has a very real death risk for her.
> 
> The Knight of the Aqualord established that Lyos is a reincarnation, next in a lineage of Ragradia's power glued to a human soul being reborn. Since one of the former Knight's old friends was still alive, that indicates reincarnation happens really quickly for the Knights (as opposed to the souls of ordinary people, who seem to stick around for a bit in hell). Luna learned that her afterlife would be cut short due to being a Knight during the same journey as she got the information about Zelas.


	7. Xelloss's Penrose

Xelloss's relation to Filia's lifestyle had been breaking things, _making_ things was not in his skill set. Or interests. Or job description. Or nature.

Yet here he was, cross-legged on holy ground amidst sacred waters of a reviving temple, making things.

It needs to be understood that a master of puzzles may still be stumped when asked to create a image to place on a puzzle. Certain people are arrogant enough to try anyway, only to fail miserably. Xelloss had always considered such people amusing up until the point he became one.

Filia had been smug for the past hour.

Oh, he could magically imitate things he'd seen before, but Filia was dangerously familiar with the artistic world of vases and pottery. After the third time she had caught him recreating someone else's work, he had been forced to admit he was taking short cuts. This had resulted in a lengthy speech on why this was cheating and the heavy handed insinuation he was afraid she might have more than one thing to teach him. Devil of all trades surely only devilish trades, so she claimed.

He couldn't let that slide, so he set out to prove he could make these vessels just fine on his own, thank you very much. No staff, no reconstruction magic, just hands, spinning cones and his own imagination.

"You really are lucky your true form was not in your metaphorical hands. Who knows how much more ridiculous than a cone it would have been if it had been _your_ decision. My, you might have counted as a handicapped devil."

"This just so happens to be my personal style. Merely because it does not suit _your_ tastes does not mean it is poor work."

"Ha! That's what people say who are too weak to acknowledge failure."

"Weak? As if I'd need to prove myself towards you!"

Just to show her the point, he grabbed a slab of clay and created an artistically distorted triangle along with a smooth boring triangle. "See? This is the boring one, and this here is my style."

"Xelloss, that thing defies the laws of dimension and space."

"Must you always be so demanding?"

"Yes, I must be! Being dissatisfied drives one to improvement. That's why my vases only break when you knock them over, while yours break themselves or ... Xelloss, doesn't that hurt?"

He turned an eye down, followed her startled look. His hand had dissolved in a spatial anomaly cause by the impossible loop, and it had taken his body sense along.

"No, it doesn't. Don't worry." It was most inconvenient though.

Damn mathematics.

No. Wait. Was damning mathematics an affront to the Lord of Nightmares? Would She know this and be dissapointed?

While he pondered this grave question and tried to regenerate his hand, Filia resumed her work by pursing her lips, creating a needle thin ray of laserbreath. Using this she engraved her vessels with intricate patterns and a subtle flow of holy magic across its surface. As she was on her knees, she had the air of prayer.

Ironically, it was her who lacked any religious devotion in her work. Xelloss was perhaps unaware of the grand scheme of his lord, but he and Zelas had spoken often enough for him to know they were serving in the motions of chaos. It was a thrilling truth to know himself as an agent of the Bearer Of Light.

And in the name of Chaos, he probably should stop worrying about possible affronts and do something fun. He gave into the temptation of brushing a finger across her neck, hooking along a strand of gold hair. With her so lost in concentration, the results were bound to be lovely.

One small touch caused her to tense up instantly. Her hair floofed out and the needle ray turned wide at the same time as her head snapped up. The vessel in her hands was spared destruction, but three others in front of her were not.

This would never get old.

"Oh my, I'm so sorry, Elders!"

That wasn't the response he'd wanted.

Milgazia, Azonge and three lieutenants whom he vaguely recognized from the war clutched the doorposts. Xelloss recognized most of them from the war, they had been quick enough to evade him and smart enough to stay away, a skill they had not lost if their dodging of Filia's errant ray was any indication. There was so much hatred coming off of them Xelloss felt like Lina before an all you can eat buffet. Helplessness flavored their resentment in the most delicious way, for they hated not only him here, but also their own weakness.

Filia chose this tactful moment to slam wet clay in his face. "It's his fault! I normally never lose control of my laserbreath!"

Stark terror pushed to the forefront of the dragons that weren't Filia, who simply felt apologetic and somewhat gloaty.

Xelloss chose this tactful moment to manifest four small cones behind Filia's back, quietly lifting the water bowl as he peeled the clay off his face with distracting slowness. "Really, miss Filia, you expect them to believe that? They still haven't fixed that wall you so viciously attacked upon my arrival."

"That was your fault too!"

The bucket was slapped away by a golden tail. He leaned back just in time to avoid it.

"I saw their eyes move," Filia said with a smirk.

"Filia, what are you two doing?" Milgazia asked monotonously while waving off a delicious mixture of desperation, confusion and spiritual loss. That last one was particularly fantastic in flavor. How indeed would someone like Milgazia explain this absurd situation?

" _I_ am making better vessels. _He_ is just slowing me down," Filia said, puffing up her cheeks. She waved broadly at the (to her) mishapen creations that were scattered around Xelloss.

"Those are vessels?"

"Yes, but you don't have to use his. They're defective and the new ones he'll make will be more practical and not eat hands." Did she realize she was spicing them?

They were not fond of her vessels either, he noticed in the next inhaling of miasma.

Hers were smoother and resembled actual pottery, but were adorned with cats, maces, vulpen and other beastfolk, dragons and unicorns, embezzled with the occasional flower pattern or swirls.

The sad part was that this was still better than what the dragons had come up with : dragon shaped statues engraved with ovelry solemn sayings about warding off evil in runescript, which just oozed Milgazia's cutting boredom and Azonge's boastful dullness.

It took the dragons half a minute before they decided what to say, a time span not helped by Xelloss cracking one eye open and staring at them with an all too pleasant smile.

Filia waited all the time for what she thought would be praise.

"I'm afraid we will have to ask you to ... they are very ... "

"What is it?" Filia asked. She didn't snap at dragon elders like she did at him, but it tasted almost the same.

"Make something less human looking. Simpler. If we are to use tools at all, they ought to reflect their origins, not common household decorations. The shapes we had in our prior vessels are most convenient and worthy."

The miasma that accompanied rebellion was one of many neutral tastes. Defiance could be fueled by a need to do the right thing, or a desire to just ditch the restrictive rules. He could feed on it just fine, though it was tasteless. Filia always felt a little intimidated by elders, but that wouldn't hold her down long. Any second now ...

"But the vessels you are making are too weak! I've seen them used before and they can break just by pushing them together a little too hard, and yours are even worse! Vessels shouldn't be like scripture cubes! What I'm doing here is making them in a more sturdy way, they _need_ to be rounded."

"You should trust her on this. Miss Filia would know all about pottery since it's the meaning of her life."

Oh, finally! That did it. She snapped her head at him and ...

Her nostrils flared and her miasma spiked, but she _didn't_ shout anything.

"I'm glad you finally admit my expertise, albeit with such silly exageration," she said with a haughty hairflip. Turning back to their visitors, she said, "You don't need to check up on us, Elders, I'll let you know once _I'm_ done getting Xelloss up to date with the art."

Oh, come now. It was getting harder and harder to get a rise out of her. She had to be quietly reasoning with herself to make those feelings behave. That probably was a required skill to running a shop, but ... was he honestly competing with her brief history with customers being always right?

"Is it necesary you misuse your laserbreath in such a way?" Milgazia tried.

"It is not misuse! My engravings are very shallow and they aid in the magical structure. I invented it myself."

The dragons were edging out of the room, however, because Xelloss had lost his cool again. Smoothing out his expressions he smiled at them, which only unsettled them more.

Filia used the window of distraction to ram more wet clay in his face. This time, he returned the favor.

All in honor of ancient feuds, off course. Not at all because he wasn't self controlled enough to endure this particular golden dragon.

**· · · · · · ·**

In between vessels, Xelloss investigated the exact status of the dragons. He had as little clue as anyone else what had started the tension, so it wasn't even an entirely horrible task even if it meant the company of dreary dragons. He might learn something new.

The northern dragons were involved in empowering the kingdom of Dills, largely because for once they hoped to beat the devils to getting the hook in. No devil could be there unnoticed with dragons and elves all over the place. They were also in contact with the western wind dragons, who had no interest at all in human kingdoms. Wisely, they did not speak to them about their local project. Their vision spells, even when conducted through crystal balls, were too unsafe from prying astral eyes. Besides, surely the gods would tell the other dragons what was occurring.

Surely not, Xelloss knew.

This led to delightfully confusing conversations when the wind dragons had a vastly more depressing idea of how well warfare against devils would go, while the water dragons came across as crazy with their poor attempts at coded talk. _Magic grabby shields shall make a great difference_ , really?

Nothing was said about Xelloss. Milgazia came close to alluding to a temporary ally, but had been assured by said ally that it was to his best interest not to speak of this to anyone outside of the mountains.

The more complicated details of his involvement with the dragons would be dealt with by Earthlord Rangort. This god had subtly seized the northern lands by using Fibrizo's access point to Hell in the Desert of Destruction. By filling the framework of the barrier with her power, certain places could be hazed from Vrabazard's view. At most, a look to the north would tell Vrabazard the dragons were more anxious lately, but the god wasn't likely to pry over that and notice that small missing patch.

Which was just as well, considering the new time frame.

Xelloss had believed his job had been to escort Filia below this barrier, and then be done with it. The plan, whatever it was, wouldn't be happening for a few more years. He returned to Wolfpack Island expecting a different mission only to be sent to Kataart to assassinate certain devils, and then retrieve fusion magic vessels. He was given the parting words that he'd figure the rest out on his own. Well, it fell in place when he arrived to find there were no functional vessels, but there was _her_.

It was one thing to spend a few hours taunting Filia, it was another thing entirely to be _educated_ by one with such a foul tongue as hers.

Four months he had to endure this before he had mastered holy teleportation, along with a detailed vow to only use it to bring people _out_ of trouble, and suffering through one tasteless insult after another. When Xelloss needed something from her, it meant a reversal of power that she latched onto with claws and teeth. He did not look forward to a repeat, but that was exactly what he had to face.

No matter how much vases he broke, in the end she could forge new vases while he was still seen as the avatar of all filth, worthless to regard. Her looks, her very feeling told him this. He couldn't truly win even if she had a thousand vases for him to trick her into ruining.

It was an ongoing assault of psychological warfare. Amelia at least knew what she did to him, he had needed to betray them before she played mean. Not so with Filia. With Filia, it came naturally. She just knew how to get under his skin, how to shake up his self image that was so vital to a devil's integrity.

Truth be said, not as vital for him as it was for other devils. But it was the principle of the thing.

Then there were dragon related duties of an entirely different nature ...

"Is the principle of the thing worth risking your mission? You should spend less time contesting Filia and more time securing the area. Why is the boy allowed to even go out?"

"I don't see any harm in him played with miss Memphis and mister Jillas. I have ascertained she is spooked by what she sees on the astral plane and is unlikely to cast the spell that allows her to see there. Furthermore, their destructive play keeps the more curious dragons at bay."

"That was playing? Oh my, what has become of my gift of wisdom? I honestly believed that was exercise."

"Personally I'd commend the little elf for her risky tastes. Perhaps you too can learn a varying concept of play. I recall you putting in quite some effort into the role of weak old lady."

"Heheh ... I was. Though, you are wrong to assume it was play. It was effort to exist. This persona was amongst the last thoughts of the water dragon king, that is all."

"How disappointing."

"I see not why. Your idea of play often does not leave you happy. At least, not from what I have recently observed."

"Let's say it is the overall experience that I favor."

"How so?"

"I'm afraid that may simply be too complex for you to understand yet."

"Don't get condescending with me, Beast Priest."

"I meant no offense, honestly. It is simply that you have not been very ... how do I say this? Not very interested in evolution."

"I think I'm capable of amusement after all."

"Really? What makes you think that?"

"I experienced a favorable emotion by being lectured about evolution by someone who won't evolve because of the principle of the thing."

"That's a completely different situation!"

**· · · · · · ·**

At dawn, he passed by Filia to feed on her miasma, curtsy of her nightmares.

**· · · · · · ·**

Filia had demanded a kiln within the work hall as the dragons in charge of the regular kilns were too clumsy for her liking. Paranoia was involved, curtsy by Val, Jillas, Gravos and Molly breaking things. He earned theoretical credit too, but really, that was a matter of her just being distracted too easily.

It was on the left side of the entrance, not too far from their work spot but far enough so that Xelloss couldn't feign accidentally redirecting a canal into it. The vessels they had forged the prior evening would be just about done right now. Xelloss floated above their work spot, waiting for Filia to open the kiln.

"Xelloss! You put that triangle in here!"

"Oh my, oops. I did?"

"Yes!" She whirled around and pointed at the kiln. "The inside is five times bigger than before and all the vases have converged into this ... this _thing_ that shouldn't exist. You put it out of its misery right away!"

"Always a drama queen, are you not? It can't be that bad."

"Take a look yourself!"

Preparing the understatement of the century, he stuck his head into the kiln and looked.

And looked.

And looked.

The unshape.

The mathematic crime.

Exist not.

Cannot be.

Yet it was.

He should have realized that the dimension would unstable on an area where a god had died. While not as severe as in the center of the demons ocean, there were certain exploitations that could be ...

"I have sinned against our Mother ..." he muttered.

Horrified, Xelloss exploded the kiln with blue fire and plenty of spacial reconstruction. He phased to the opposite of the hall and hunched in a corner, eyes wide open and arms around his knees. Gloomy shadows surrounded him.

"You sewer priest! You could have at least tried to get our vessels out! How are we going to see whether they worked?"

Xelloss needed an hour and then some before he could think about that.

Filia was in the middle of building a new kiln by the time he rejoined the land of the coherently thinking. A pile of rubble was what remained of the ... unthing ... lay in a heap near the door with a neat little note for the clean up crew, which contained an apology that roundly blamed the garbage on the other garbage. He'd have tampered with the message, but something drew his attention. The vessels Filia had made were in pieces, but recognizable pieces. His vessels were only recognizable because they kept his fire burning.

Well, this was embarrassing.

The foremost step was to build vessels that could hold magic. Xelloss knew a thing or two about the structure of magical containers, he had investigated the soul jars in Taforashia at leisure. _Off course_ Amelia had sent Filia a soul jars for her collection, so Filia was just as up to date but couldn't possibly be better. That meant that there was something fundamentally wrong with his approach.

The door creaked up and Xelloss was hit with a wave of nutritious but bland miasma and astral distortion. Val peeked in, blood on face and hair.

"Mom?"

Just like that, entertaining Filia vacated for troubled Filia. She set down the bricks she'd been holding and ran over.

"Val! What happened?"

As he stepped in, he turned his eyes down. There were more than a few gashes on him. Filia pulled a cloth from her gem's subspace and gently dabbed at the wounds.

"I was out helping Jillas with his new cannons when a few devils attacked us ... Memphis killed them, but one of them got to me ... I killed that one." His voice was shaking, but Xelloss tasted not so much fear as he tasted exhilaration. "I didn't know I could ... I just breathed on him once, you know, laserbreath, and he died. Heh ... didn't need to try clawing at it ... Are you angry that I killed it?"

"Oh, Val. It's okay, that was just self defense." She pulled him closer and lifted the jacket, revealing more gashes on his back. A restrained transformation, most likely. Xelloss couldn't tell.

Val's astral body was technically normal, but he cast a shadow on the astral plane that was roughly that of his true form at his appropriate age. It would be interesting to learn whether the failed transformation was self sabotage or a spell by the attacker, but there was no way to discover right now. In any case, he would have to do something about the exposure risk.

"Val, sit down and I'll clean these wounds. I have to make sure there are no infections before I heal them, understand? Otherwise the spell might help the germs."

"Okay."

Filia took Val to one of the canals that had an alcove while questioning him about the exact events. Xelloss started humming, finding time went too slow when it came to Val leaving. He wanted back to work and that brat out of his sight.

When Filia was done, Val kicked that hope in the gut by picking up one of Xelloss's earlier vessels, which had been in the kiln before the nocturnal batch.

"Looks like garbage," he said.

"Indeed it does," Filia said, voice tinted with motherly pride and schadenfreude.

"Hey, mom, wanna try doing fusion magic? I bet we can do it better than you with Evil Wizard Cone Thingy."

Filia was thrilled with the idea of not needing Xelloss for fusion magic. Eagerly, she knelt at his side and told him just how to tap into the magic. She was so happy with the idea, it was a personal affront, really.

Xelloss crossed his arms and leaned against the kiln, observing the scene with one eye open and all of his astral senses alert.

Filia created a light spell in her hands, and Val held the vessel ahead of himself.

Nothing. Not even a glimmer of darkness leaked out of Val's vessel.

Xelloss raised a finger and cheerfully said, "It may be his unusual magical construction getting in the way. Or maybe he's just pathetic at magic. Probably the latter. I mean, how much clothes did he wreck again?"

"Shut up, trash! Val controls magic excellently for his age!" She ran a hand over the boy's head and soothingly added, "It's probably just because you're not a channel for Shabranigdu, like he is, and this vessel is defective. For the prophecy we were part of, I believe the gods did something special to the flow that allowed us to conduct more power than we could wield and combine it. Let's try when there are proper fusion magic vessels with a connection. Then you shall see we can do fusion magic much better than I can with Xelloss."

That's what it was to Filia, just a gimmick installed by higher powers. It betrayed a concrete lack of respect for the complexity of magic, especially something so difficult Xelloss didn't even get it. Outwardly though, he just kept smiling.

"I guess that makes sense. I bet we can do awesome things, like erase devils. They're made out of magic, right? Maybe we can make Xelloss a lot weaker, I bet he won't be so rude anymore! If he survives it."

Filia's smile turned stiff. "Let's not speculate that far ahead, Val. Xelloss may be a nuisance, but he doesn't need to die now. Nobody should die for such shallow reason, okay."

"Hmmhmm."

Filia liked to tell herself he was just a good, solemn little kid, but she had no experience with children of any sort. Val was too serious for a seven year old. He felt no trepidation at devil aura because he was used to it, but he had an innate fear for golden dragons. Sometimes he had that look in his eyes, the same potential for obsession.

It took something as severe as a casual mention of murder for her to see Valgarv, but she was quick to shove it aside.

"Can't you two do fusion magic to show me how it's done?" Val asked.

Ah, there it was. That nasty little question they had been avoiding. Xelloss and Filia _could_ fuse magic alright if their goal was the same. They just couldn't _wield_ it all that well, as had become painfully evident three years ago. Now, Luna and Laust couldn't even fuse magic, but there was still that final step they needed Lina for.

What exactly did the trick was a riddle to Xelloss.

When those royal children with their shallow bond, undefined goals and lack of magic experience knocked together the vessels, it had glowed white a little, chaffed away at the offensive energy and then exploded around them.

In contrast, out of those same vessels Amelia and Zelgadis had brought forth a highly controlled web of black light which neatly absorbed all the energy they meant it to absorb, but left Lina's spell alone. Amelia and Zelgadis were experienced magic users with a far more profound familiarity to one another's magical resonance. To date, they were the only duo to have successfully wielded fusion magic.

When Xelloss had taken Filia's energy and merged it with his own, there was no blending at all. It remained a cloud of darkness with some yellow streaks and paid no effect on the seal, contrast to the instantaneous effect of the former two scenarios. Possibly because there were no actual two wielders, or no concord, or their goals were too different.

When they had channeled the energies of Siephied and Shabranigdu and the effect had yet again been different : a cloud of white burning with a net of darkness. It had been Lina alone who had directed it, but the magic had been in the hands of Xelloss and Filia. At Lina's command, it turned to gold. A similar thing had happened in the battle against the third Shabranigdu.

He set aside the last scenarios, as Lina had been host to the Sea of Chaos and thus the most unknown factor.

The other three ... There had to be rhyme and reason somewhere but it was far to be sought, and for once Xelloss was _not_ entertained by this. Unpredictable scenarios were only fun if _he_ was the engineer behind it.

**· · · · · · ·**

"There are thirty six lesser devils that have noticed him when he went out today. Don't slack off, beast priest, alright?"

"Hmmmph. Do those idiots not understand the dangers of going near a rabid Zenaffa wielding girl?"

"You have entirely too over reaching ideas of the intelligence of devils in this area. It is only the fools that remain."

"I suppose we will have no conversation tonight then."

"Yes, unfortunately. I was looking forward to tea."

"I was under the impression you never were capable of consuming tea."

"True, but I can pretend. It comes with this persona, you see, as it once did with yours."

"A shame you never got to live it."

"Ah, a shame indeed. And a lie too. I can't say I honestly need this persona once we are done."

"My self of long ago would have reasoned similarly, yet here I am."

"There's no guarantee how I would turn out. Be on your way, beast priest. Rangort will give additional directions."

**· · · · · · ·**

At dawn he found Filia already awake, in their work hall and dunking her head in the basin.

He stepped on her tail, and she shot up. Her tail she curled around her legs protectively as she glared at him.

"My my, picking up local customs? I hear many a dragon uses this tactic to recover from mister Milgazia's jokes."

"I don't have tea, alright? I need to do something to be awake properly! Off course, a devil like you wouldn't get that."

"You realize I eat emotions, do you not?"

"That's _knowing_ them, not getting it. You _couldn't_ understand how it feels to lack sleep."

He could imagine it, though. The principle was being low on energy, but he wasn't affected by thing such as headache and tired muscles.

As she wrung her hair out in a towel, Xelloss could see the exhaustion in her movements. She was not physically ill, but the mental costs of the very sympathy she praised as a wisdom called a heavy tax. So much worry for the fate of her child that it could throw her off balance. At that price, Xelloss had no interest in understanding.

Then again, granny Aqua had no interest in understanding anything he advertised. It was no mere theory that mental facets looked very different from inside the madness.

He wasn't quite mad enough to experiment with understanding exhaustion though, he liked his mind and projection just fine.

"Xelloss, I have a question. We are allies again and more than ever, how we cooperate is important. In the interest of that, can you give me a straight answer?"

Normally he would have given a diagonal answer to that, but she'd take that as a no and drop it. That might just complicate things for the reason she had mentioned. How they cooperated ...

"That depends on what you'll ask me."

"Whose idea was it, this whole plot to have us here and working on these vessels? Why?"

"That is a secret," he said happily. He planned to pepper the conversation with that phrase.

Instead of the usual frustration, she only sighed as she gave him a flat stare.

"Doesn't that get boring?"

"What?"

"At some point, people get used to you keeping secrets and learn not to be irritated by it. What do you have left then?"

Gourry had effectively used that against him already, actually. Not that she needed to know.

"Was that your question? Well, that is easily answered, I'll have —"

"No, that wasn't it."

Still that flat stare. They were falling out of the rhythm and he didn't like it one bit.

"Can I and my family expect to suffer the consequences of this plot? Miss Luna disappeared, I have no idea who the big bad enemy is and I'm in the middle of a golden dragon colony with a toddler of a nation that believes he is inherently violent. I'm helping you, the least you can do is warn me when we should run."

Xelloss hated not knowing enough, and he hated that she had to inadvertently point this out.

"I do not know what the plan is and I have heard no word or implication of miss Luna being involved by us. Perhaps the dragons managed to recruit her after all."

"As if!"

"A well placed sleep spell—"

"Miss Luna isn't dense, Xelloss."

"But she is young and inexperienced."

"No, we're not doing this. We're off topic again. Xelloss, you can _guess_ the plan."

"No. My liege the Beast Monarch has deemed is necessary not to tell me the goal. But ... I can say this. Six years ago, I went to see whether I could repay a favor I owed to Aqualord Ragradia. I discovered certain things which I strongly suspect inspired my lord to set certain events in motion. What I discovered is a main component of the plan, while your involvement extends to the providing of fusion magic vessels. Nothing about the current plan should send you fleeing, but I cannot predict the dragons."

One of the devious things about languages with no difference between singular and multiple you was that you could tell the truth about one individual, while the other would assume it to be multiple.

She tilted her head to the side. "How did you come to owe a favor to a god?"

"Surely miss Lina told you of her first confrontation with Garv? I didn't get out of the desert on my own, you see. The Aqualord teleported me out along with the others, even though she had to send her power out of the way for this. Perhaps it was merely so I would continue protecting miss Lina, but that doesn't matter."

"That is how the Aqualord was, was she? She truly must have cared to allow as many as possible to live. Is what remains of her involved too?"

"Indirectly, yes."

With a deep breath, she turned to the statue of the broken god and didn't regard him anymore. It was a stolen moment of rapture, a small indulgence when she fell back into her priestess self and forgot to be ashamed of holiness. Still he tasted that deep sensation of a person who had to let go of their faith. Xelloss found it difficult to imagine what mind accompanied this feeling, though. For him no world had ever existed where there was a higher power taking care of the deserving.

The holiness in return acknowledged her with a gentle ripple across the water. That was how the illusion of divine sympathy laid in the minds of those seeking to believe, but reality was nothing more than one form of magic responding to another as chemicals did to their environment. Did she grasp that much now?

Ah well, it did nothing for him to understand that aspect of her. He knew what it was and how it functioned, that was enough. How she felt wasn't his concern as long as she didn't get too desperate. When she got taken over by sorrow, she observed but the most personal of details and forgot the whole picture. She was useless in such times.

Not to mention far less entertaining.

It wasn't sorrow, however, that suddenly took her now. It was a slumbering rage waking.

"If Earthlord Rangort is in on this ... " Her brow furrowed and her eyes narrowed, her fists balling together in sudden rage. "Xelloss, doesn't it bother you to be pushed around by a stronger being?"

"It does if it is anyone other than my liege the Beast Monarch. Alas, Fibrizo did not last long after he did such," Xelloss said with a chuckle, waving a hand as if merely dismissing a fly.

"I meant her. Zelas Metaliom."

"I have every reason to assume that what liege desires is something I will enjoy as well. I may not like all my orders, but we want the same and _you have no business questioning my lord_. In fact, that is lord Zelas Metaliom to you."

"I like Slimy Hairball better," Filia said dismissively, her eyes still fixed on the statue.

Xelloss fazed before her, looking down with both eyes open. "You have no right to refer to her in such a way! Really, you and miss Luna, what do you even want to achieve with your stupid nickname habit?"

She looked at him now, still unimpressed. "What do _you and Zelas want_?"

It was so clear what question lay on the tip of her tongue, but she never asked. Sometimes he wanted her to.

"Take it back," he snapped, but it fell on barren ground. She just glared back at him, and the canals flooded out, burning him.

He withdrew to the astral plane and spent the rest of the day searching for loose witness ends.

**· · · · · · ·**

"Can you tell me anything about what happened today?"

"Resonance of a designated channel with Siephied's power. You should experience a similar thing when close to any piece of Shabranigdu, correct?"

"As a matter of fact, I do not."

"Strange. Perhaps it is because she has access to the flow in a way a being such as you cannot. I was busy scrying for more witnesses, so you tell me, what did you argue on?"

"She questioned me about what might lay in store for her and implied we are responsible for the missing of miss Luna. I suspect spiritual difficulties."

"Are you responsible?"

"Not to my knowledge. She didn't even thank me for being open!"

"She thinks your lord may be, and that you might hide it indirectly. Let me tell you something about faith, or rather, my favorite dish. There are a lot of ways one can have faith, for some it is belief, for others it ties strongly into their moral code. Oh, don't interrupt me, I know you know all this. But did you ever think about how faith exists in every relationship? The poor girl can't afford much faith, not even in you. That is exactly because she knows what you are and can guess what your creator is like."

"She isn't supposed to have faith in me, that would sorely disappoint me. It would mean she is a fool."

"Just hope she won't end up distrusting you too much then."

"No, that would be impractical."

"If you admit that, why are you stalling? Evolution, no?"

**· · · · · · ·**

At dawn, he woke her from a nightmare and was repaid with a hurled vase. The worrisome part was that she didn't even seem to realize it was him until he turned the lights on. In this moment, he saw her self just before she pulled the shroud of duty back over her face.

It wasn't an act when she was the cheerful mother, but it was missing a lot of things that made her Filia. Val sucked all the fun out of Filia.

**· · · · · · ·**

"Alright."

"Alright what?"

"Show me how you make a stable vessels, I'm getting tired of being here more than I'm tired of your attitude."

She stared at him wide eyed, but said nothing. Instead she grabbed one of his hands, pulled off the glove and inspected his skin.

"The texture isn't useful. Project something more like worker's hands. A little roughness works best with this type of clay."

She was right, he realized as he worked on his next slab of clay, spinning atop of a cone.

Silence and spite was the work motto for the day. He wasn't in the mood for taunting her and instead fed on her many other negative emotions, though this left him mentally unsatisfied.

It was depressing that this meant far quicker progress. They went through several builds of vessel and pinned down the right magic to contain light and darkness.

Near the end of the day, Xelloss had suggested to make the vessels entirely out of metal to begin with, but Filia wouldn't hear any of it. She could work metal too, but claimed there was something about clay that was superior to metal.

"Care to elaborate on that? I've never heard such a thing before. Metal should do just fine."

That's when she did it. She raised a finger to her smirk and said, "It's a secret."

**· · · · · · ·**

"Who does she think she is, using my own catchphrase against me?"

"Metal conducts energy, clay is a better isolator. This reflects even in shamanistic magic."

"That is not the point!"

"What is?"

"It's not important." He set down the first stable holy vessel on the ever shifting floor. "Try it."

A wire of light folded out, rapidly became thick and finally converged into the illusion of a small old elf. She tapped the vessel with her staff, which passed though the clay but stirred the magic within.

"There is no other half yet, is there?"

"We have not yet figured out how to create a flow between the vessels, but it should happen soon."

"Can you two wield fusion magic yet?"

"Unfortunately, no," he said, scratching the back of his head. "I don't think I'm likely to have a similar goal as her when she's acting like that. She insulted my liege the Beast Monarch and stole my catchphrase. I cannot cooperate with a dragon like that!"

"You're as much of a problem, don't you think so? You've complained about her for years yet you still lose your cool over such a little thing as a nickname and a catchphrase."

He chuckled nervously. "Anyway, anymore witnesses?"

"No, you were successful. I did however noticed something else. Ever since that little incident, the boy has been searching for a place to hide on his own. He appears to be following something and generally strays towards the entrance of the Claire Bible. Bring him here, will you?"

Xelloss had to consider this.

The up side would be that if he wouldn't have to worry about elves with astral sight spells and devils. He wasn't comfortable though with bringing an anomaly like Val close to an unstable entity that he very much needed alive.

"I can keep him hidden in the maze far better than you can outside, you know this. Also, if he is attacked here by devils, he can use his full power without risk of discovery. There is space for full out transformation too."

"Hmm ... and after that little incident, it would be credible to the dragons and elves if Filia were to keep him indoors. I'm am more worried what will happen to you, should you touch his strange shadow."

"I will keep my distance, don't worry."

"Perhaps you could attempt to entertain him? Not only will it be easier to convince him to stay put, you might attempt to feed on his miasma."

"That'll be fine. Say, he is the son of the one who destroyed my first stage, is he not?"

"I would not say so. This is his third life, he is the son of miss Filia, not of Garv."

"I find this question much akin to whether or not I am the Aqualord or Granny Aqua. As with that question, you fail the point."

"You retain memory of all these lives, he does not."

"He retains personality, I do not. Bring him here, I'm curious what we can sort out about one another."

He really shouldn't now he knew she planned to _poke_. But it would be so interesting and he might get some answers. Besides, who was he to discourage people poking at things?

Especially since she might stop poking at anything at all otherwise. The construct he spoke with was no real person, just a program vaguely imprinted on raw power. It had to start changing and growing, and so far Xelloss had not succeeded in pushing her that far.

"I'll be back in in a minute."

He found Val wandering on the slope below the entrance, unable to go higher without growing his wings. The moonless night could cover him, but he had been told that it took a mere lightning spell and a curious dragon to betray him, so Filia had made him promise not to fly unless in emergency. That he was keeping, even if he had obviously broken the rule to stay inside at night.

The boy seemed to follow something, but Xelloss detected no magic. Off course, this didn't mean there was no magic, merely that whatever it was was in range of Val's shadow.

Xelloss hopped over to him.

"Hello, Val. What would you be doing out here so late?"

"You're here again?" He looked straight up at him, though Xelloss saw no source of light. There was a hint of suspicion coming from the child.

"Again? What do you mean?"

"There was a trail of feathers. Last time I followed it, I was being chased and it led me to you. Though it takes a lot longer now. I can't find a way, the trail keeps changing or stopping ... and right now it's still pointing away from you, so it's not you."

Xelloss's hadn't been waiting in that meadow, he had just followed the dragons as they followed Val. It certainly was unusual though the child survived long enough for Xelloss to catch up when he had been so far away. From the sound of it, whatever caused this trail had some radar for danger, likely changing path to avoid curious devils. Oh, how annoyed that he couldn't see what was up with the boy.

"Perhaps I can get you where you want to go?"

"To the door you go through every night?"

"How ... why do you think that?"

"Mom dreamed that and I got curious, and then the feathers appeared. What do you do there?"

"Let's say I need more endurable company than the local dragons when your mother sleeps."

Val's suspiciousness of him ebbed away further. Xelloss had long since found out that anti-dragon sentiment was a good way to get the boy on his side.

"Someone's in there? It's not another bad dragon then?"

"No, she is not. She is a memory of someone who was too stubborn to properly die. A quite admirable lady, I must say. Unfortunately, she rather lack drive and passion. Perhaps you can help her and she will hide you in return."

"Huh ... okay. Mom's finally sleeping, but it's okay if I go with you, right?"

"Naturally!" Xelloss grabbed his leg and flew up the slope, child dangling upside down all the way.

"Hey! That's mean!" Val hissed.

"Have you forgotten I'm a devil?"

He flicked him to the ground before the portal and watched whether his strange astral form would affect the magic. It did cause a haze, but nothing severe. The principle behind the entrance was akin to Filia's teleportation, though stagnant. As expected, it remained stable.

Val was still sitting on the ground, rubbing his head. "You don't always have to be such a jerk."

"Now now, don't complain over such a small thing. You're starting to sound too much like miss Filia."

Truth be said, that was preferable to him sounding like Valgarv, which would be more like heretic rants about the injustice of the Lord of Nightmares.

"Val, hold onto my cloak. Inside is a maze that lies a little towards the astral plane. It means weaker devils will be able to manifest, so you may encounter some that are stupid enough to try and get you lost."

They passed through the radiant portal to land into the strange zone of the Claire Bible's space. Val's eyes almost popped out of his head as he realized the very fabric of matter constantly changed. Sometimes it was a landscape of crystals, only to ebb into biomechanic halls, and then blank blue space, and back again. It didn't happen as smoothly or rapidly as it once had, so Xelloss was told. Garv's attack had done some damage.

"What now?"

"We walk about two thousand miles, but don't worry, it takes a few steps if we have the right space below our feet," Xelloss said.

Val prodded the ground with his feet before unfolding his wings.

"You can do the steps," he said, a little shakily. Still holding onto the cloak, Val followed flying. "So, this place is the bible? That's a weird name for a place. What's the girl's name? Claire?"

"Ehm ... I suppose you can call her Claire if she approves. I'm not sure you should call her a girl, though."

Xelloss wasn't entirely sure what was here, actually.

When Aqualord Ragradia died, the remnants of her astral body found souls to attach to. Her power went into the Knight of the Aqualord, her knowledge into the Claire Bible and her wisdom went into the Queen of Zephyria. And then there are the kind of memories that make up personalities. They are inevitably tied to knowledge, but a little bit extra. Garv had nearly eradicated this remnant, but within the Claire Bible itself there was a sort of ... remnant of the remnant.

It was a little of a god and Val wasn't keen on gods. Whether this was Filia's raising, Luna's influence or remnants from the past he could not tell. Either way, it was better to let him form an opinion before a prejudice played up.

It was a good thing she didn't look like a god or dragon in the Aqua form. A tiny old elf was a strange choice but ...

... oh.

"Is that her?"

Up ahead was a wide crystal that slowly morphed into a dark platform. Atop this sat a humanoid roughly the size of Granny Aqua, and with the very same magical vibration. Aside of the white dress and blue cloak, she looked nothing like the former though. She was young, with blue hair and teal eyes that lacked pupils. From below her blue cloak stuck a set of batwings. In her own way, she mirrored Val.

She smiled and waved at Val. "Hello! I'm Claire! Will you be my playmate?"

Xelloss suppressed a chuckle when he recognized the hairstyle, a thick low tied ponytail arranged so it fell over her shoulder. A fitting homage to the most aquatic adventure Lina Inverse had been part of. It would be no surprise if a taste for octopus would reveal itself in the imminent future.

"What am I supposed to do?" Val asked, waving back hesitantly. "And why does she have wings? You said she was no dragon!"

"I'm not an enemy dragon, don't worry!" she called. "I'm not even a real dragon, I just thought I'd have wings since you did."

"Just play with her. I will be back in the morning." He prodded Val in the back, towards her.

Val looked over his shoulder, but then found his resolve and flew over to her. The newly named Claire stood up, flapping her wings and widening her smile. The expression she produced was a tad artificial, indicating her limited behavioral patterns, but he'd seen worse. (He'd seen Milgazia, who could do only as much as look blank, frown and sometimes smirk.)

Xelloss left the Claire Bible, but didn't stray far from the entrance. If Val screwed up the dimensional balance, he would interfere. Just perhaps, he'd indulge himself and be mean about it.

Xellos didn't do grudges. It was pointless. However, if Valgarv shadowed through too much, it would be a matter of retaliation.

Valgarv had been an idiot wallowing in his own misery. He always could have had the life he led now if only he'd _allowed_ himself to. Instead, he had been out to ruin this world and all its complexities, out to take away all choice — the choices of his lord and himself — raging after women who had done him no harm.

Even raging against the omega, the Lord of Nightmares. He had questioned Her, the One Being deserving of all respect in the world. He had tried to _subvert_ Her Will.

Yet he still existed in some way. Xelloss could only accept it, but he still wanted to know why.

Perhaps it was Lina's golden nature, the touch of Her on her soul. Perhaps it was Volphied. Perhaps it was the creation magic. Perhaps it was just the system Valgarv had set up for the rebirth that he had promised. Perhaps it was a combination of some those things, perhaps it was all of them combined.

**· · · · · · ·**

At dawn, he found Filia in a panic because Val was gone.

He happily informed her he had a solution for the hiding issue, as he now wandered around in the Claire Bible and couldn't be found by anyone but him and its guardian. She called him garbage for taking her son without asking, but when Xelloss teleported said back back she was elated.

Just perhaps, he might have heard a _thank you_ in there.

"If there's an emergency, will you help us hide by bringing us to the Claire Bible, and out again, even if I'm done being useful?"

"Yes."

"That's good enough."

 

**· · · · · · ·**

Across the next days, Xelloss and Filia perfected their vessels to the point they could hold magic without a single leak, and they responded to the pull of magical command. The flow itself, well ... it didn't just happen, but he could pick up the details on the principles Filia had taught him years ago.

It was on the fifth day that they decided to mass fill the vessels by summoning the power of Shabranigdu and Siephied, from there on they'd try reverse engineering the flow. Xelloss realized it was easier than ever before, and in a quiet corner of his mind had to attribute it to Filia feeling safer. This allowed her energy to spread out.

She was under the impression that he'd gone out of his way to make her a little more at ease, and in turn, that made her a little easier to cooperate with. That was all it took? A little touch of trust? He hadn't thought _that_ would be possible. Then again, he hadn't thought she'd ever rebel against her temple, aid him when he was injured or give him a sincere smile. Took a Götterdammerung, though.

Like it was the most casual thing, they drowned the hall in a cloud of black. The holy waters stilled and all magic but their own ceased.

Once again, the fusion looked different. More than ever Filia's affinity to a god of fire was apparent : the cloud filled with a prism of flame colored triangles, some of them impossible. The triangles might have been his doing, indirectly. A little imprint on local space, most likely. He was at liberty to see a sign in it, so he did.

It also gave a nice atmosphere, the kind that made Filia mesmerized for just long enough to let him concoct another abomination of clay.

When Filia retrieved herself from her admiration of the shiny, she noticed what he'd done.

"Xelloss, that rectangle can't exist logically! Why did you make another one?"

"Based on scenery and recent calculations of magical, spiritual and miasmic nature, I just concluded that the Lord of Nightmares is fine with this type of small sin too."

"You're hopeless ... what do you mean, too?"

"That's a secret."

 


	8. Luna's Dismorphism

Luna Inverse had many at her feet (bowing or bloody), few at her heart and little understanding of why she was this way. She'd stopped asking for reasons, but she was still interested in ways.

Good grief, ways. There's the way of life, the way of earth, the way of countries, the way of every day life and the way of people out of their element. The most relevant way today was the way Luna had lost her way today.

She was on the other side of the globe in a jungle without man-made ways, which would explain part of it. As for the rest ...

Some would say it is a simple thing, to get lost. It wasn't. It really, really wasn't. For Luna wasn't a matter of pride or being framed, or spontaneous changes in the geography (she heard this happened a lot lately). No, for her it was the reality that people could run away from her in this land.

What would have been simple was to _not_ intimidate the guide she had hired.

It was just that he was such a little twerp, a messy eater, and he prayed every night to Siephied, complaining about the stuck up woman and her idiot pet and couldn't he just get a break? Luna was sorely tempted to answer it by making him shape up to realize his life wasn't that awful. So they'd started arguing, and every now and then Luna astrally poked him to bring him off balance.

After two days of that, he fled along with the money she'd paid.

In this strange land she couldn't pursue him, her title meant nothing and even if it would have, she had no authorities to appeal to get him brought to justice. It was a hard thing to kick someone's ass when you didn't know their whereabouts.

Or her own.

Before this disaster, getting a ride on a boat with a beastman in tow turned out obnoxious, and she'd given up on boats after a dragon almost spotted her while in the wide open. Rumors spoke of devil movement and dragon wars, a thousand year old fear rekindled. All in all, people were more than a little suspicious of the young woman with concealed eyes and werewolf wandering around. All sense of direction had been lost due to detours and one attempted arrest. And now this.

Her destination was the one place she knew where to have a private chat with Valwin, for which she needed a physical access point. Five years ago, Lina had visited these lands on a quest for adventure and off course had gotten wrapped up in the machinations of the astral. This had accumulated with her visited the dispassionate god Valwin to request he grant her power. The village tied to this temple had been destroyed in the ensuing battle against the devils, but if no one was there Luna planned to just figure out how to operate the temple herself.

Had she mentioned yet she didn't know where she or the damn temple was?

**· · · · · · ·**

Luna turned over under her thin blanket for the hundredth time. There was mosquitoes everywhere, it was burning hot and the local fairies couldn't be bribed into chasing them off. On top of that, the closer she drew to her destination, the stronger she heard prayers to Siephied.

The kind of things people revealed about themselves in prayers made her lose faith in humankind's future. Some people knew exactly they were selfish bastards and assumed it would be forgiven cause they acknowledged it. Others thought repeating the same words over and over was a show of faith and numbers strengthened the request. If Luna had been able to, she would have divinely told them all to shut up, Siephied was dead.

A mosquito stung her in the cheek just as she nearly had fallen asleep. With a sigh, Luna flared her power and everything not her possessions in a two meter radius burned to a crisp.

Spot had been asleep just fine, but when he smelled the fire he shot to his feet.

"Luna, what's wrong?"

"I am brimming with confidence and heroic resolve. Look at me brimming," Luna mumbled from below the blanket.

"You don't look so good."

"Spot, shut up. Need sleep."

The trek through the jungle learned Luna many things. For one, her physical body had no stamina for this. Two, she was childishly jealous of Spot and his isolating furcoat that protected him from warmth and branches. Three, bugs were horrible and had no respect for divine power.

"Luna, someone's coming."

"Wha?"

"A few miles to the north, a windrunner like Zelgadis. It's gotta be a holy one, my troll blood is averse to the wind he uses."

Luna shot up. "You're kidding."

"You know who it is?"

"A windrunner using holy power instead of shamanic? That's only worth it if one has innate holy power but no wings. Raise the fire."

Spot obeyed and she gave him a pat on the head before unsheathing her sword. She faced the direction the wind came from.

His name was Lyos, the Knight of the Aqualord and the only other human in the world who was like Luna. Lina had befriended him (off course) when they had gotten involved in a plot of Deep Sea Dalphin. The goal of that plot had been for Dalphin's priest Hylaker to possess Lyos, exploiting a weakening of the soul as his power resonated with Valwin's power.

The fire was high by the time he appeared jumped through treetops. The holy wind that had sped his pace vanished the moment he stopped in a treetop about one hundred meters away.

"Spot, go hide in the forest."

"You're expecting a fight?" he asked before disappearing in the undergrowth.

"It's really coincidentally that he would be here at the same time I am. Last we heard he split with Lina to continue his traveling. Maybe a devil possessed him successfully some time after that."

Through the ribcage of Siephied she had limited astral sight, but Lyos's astral body was nearly half her own power and thus much larger than that of a human. She could see him even at this distance.

Ragradia on his soul was not skeletal like her own attachment, but more like someone had disemboweled the dragon and dumped the guts on him, then pumped it full with water. Blue veins crossed from the exposed heart beat and a broken windpipe floated like a flag underwater. A dried skin covered half the intestines, like someone had draped a dried out snake skin across the blob in an effort to conceal its malformation. Not much success there.

Lyos leaped down the tree and a little later he emerged at the opposite end of the clearing.

Luna tilted her head aside, letting one eye peek through her bangs. As a human, he looked like a man in his twenties. His hair really was something, it just went everywhere like it was addicted to static. Sparky would be a good name for him, but she'd use Lyos if he behaved. Given that smug grin, might not be long.

"I'd like to think you're here on friendly therms, but I can't know that for sure. Wanna fight me?" he said.

"Why? I'm Luna Inverse, can't you see?"

"Oh really? How am I supposed to know whether that's true?"

Luna would have thought her flaring dragon corpse was a dead give away, but from the sound of it he couldn't see onto the astral plane at all. Perhaps because his soul was covered entirely by the power? None of the corpse chunks on him were eyes either.

"Lina is missing, I want to ask Valwin to find her," she said. "And you are Lyos. Am I guessing right you want to fight me to learn more about the nature of my power? That is what drew you here, right?"

Lyos pulled the sword off his back. "Yep. No use fighting with those though. Both our powers stems from Siephied, they'd just dissolve into the flow. If you are Luna, nothing will happen but our swords. If you are more than Luna, I'll notice when we fight."

"Funny, I was curious about the exact same thing."

He pulled his sword off his back and Luna laughed. The sword was impractically wide, more like a prop you saw on rich kids who got a fancy play sword from their parents than a true weapon. She could feel its power, but it wouldn't have hurt it to be more useful in ordinary combat.

"Compensating for something?" she asked.

"Nah, it came like this. Maybe the guy before me," Lyos said with a dismissive shrug. "Whatever, it works."

Wasting no more words, he leaped at her. Luna blocked, dove to his left and lashed out, leading to his turn to block.

It did not deserve to be called a true battle, neither tried to kill the other or even wound. But it was no play either. Luna's timing was not what it could be. She usually depended on the astral plane to see what her opponent would do, since where they meant to move was often visible just a moment earlier. But here, there was no human outline to see.

Not helping was that her astral sight was limited to begin with. Luna's soul was molded onto the inner side of the spinal cord, her torso hanging forward by strands of flesh, stomach open and rotting as everything of the corpse did. A human she could read by looking through the ribcage, but Lyos's astral form was far larger than her field of vision and very erratic.

Her low bangs were suddenly a bad idea.

As expected, the energy they expelled blended together without doing any damage. The resonance was ... odd. Not even the air was affected. Still, amidst the assertion of power they could feel traces of one another, it was almost pleasant to blend like this. Luna detected nothing devilish about Lyos, but he most certainly did about Luna.

"What's that thing around your neck?" he asked between blows.

"Prank of a devil overlord. The other thing I'm going to ask Valwin about." A lie, off course, but it was easier this way.

"Really?"

For a second a dragon head overshadowed Lyos's physical form, solid enough to mask his next move. She didn't see the exactly angle of his sword until the hilt rammed against her fingers. For all her power, she was a human still. The pain loosened her grip and the next moment the sword sailed out of her hand.

Lyos held his sword aside her neck for a moment, grinning smugly. He tapped the collar.

"You fight like a devil. Foul," Luna said. She might have been more pissed off, but just didn't feel like it. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she was aware this feeling made no sense.

"There's no cheating in battle," he said. "So, can I be sure that thing won't be a tool to control you at some point?"

"You can't, neither can I. Don't I have a right to find help?"

"As much as I did," he said. His grin turned a little wider.

With one move, he stuck the oversized sword on his back and looked around.

Thereby the battle was officially over, but the strange resonance stayed. The edges his astral form still blended with her own. Not only that, but ... she didn't really feel like wiping that smug grin off his face. It was as if she'd known him long already. Friend or family sounded wrong, but they were here together and everything was right. Luna just stood there, only vaguely aware of the details of the battle. All her mind was on that energetic change.

A step towards wholeness.

"Addictive, no? The resonance?"

"It's cool," she said as she wiped imaginary dirt off her clothes and looked away.

"Who's that? Your guide?" he asked with a nod to Spot.

"Nah, the guide ditched us. He's with me."

"You there, you can come closer!" he called to Spot. "Always glad to see people hang out with beast folk, they could use a friendlier reputation," he added for Luna.

Spot gave him a suspicious look as he approached, but Lyos ignored it and held out his hand. "What's your name? And don't say no name, that one's taken," he said with a laugh.

Spot gave Luna a pathetic look, but she didn't cave.

"I'm Spot," he muttered.

Lyos frowned. His miasma took on a bitter tinge, the kind of rising displeasure Luna knew herself so well. She would have bet he would have acted on it, but it didn't happen.

"So, eh ... Spot. Luna. Let's go to the village. Did Lina ever get that letter? They've rebuilt the place, I live there now and train warriors."

"No, we didn't get it, but I'm all for going there," Luna said with a dismissive shrug.

Lyos went ahead, a ball of light in his hand to show the way.

Spot threw their luggage over his shoulder and followed last in line. At one point, he whispered, "Luna, are you alright? You smell really weird, like you're upset but also like you're happy. It freaks me out."

"S'nothing. Drop it." One more lie today.

Lina had given bare few details about her adventure here, but one thing had been spelled out as the key of Deep Sea Dalphin's plot. Lyos had been driven out of his mind by an overload of godly resonance, bringing the complexity of his mind down to the point where the devil priest Hylaker could possess him.

Luna had been in the kitchen when her parents handed her the letter, her mother had read it while Luna made pesto sauce. Luna had laughed about it, finished dinner and not slept a wink at night. Pesto sauce is a funny backdrop for learning she wasn't untouchable as a god-human chimera.

The reason the devils had used Lyos and not Luna likely was because he just happened to live closer to the god stupid enough to play right into the plot. If not for that, Luna might have been wielded instead. Luna would have gladly fallen to the belief she was too strong for that, but she knew the astral side. It was so easy to astrally damage a human, just to spook them a little. Devils she could deal with, but the exposure of godly power greater than her own was another thing. And for her, there would have been no brave Lina to pull her out. After all, she had made sure Lina feared and hated her.

The trek to the village was only two hours, they reached it just after the rise of the sun. With distaste, Luna realized that subconsciously she must have been drawn closer to the place, or perhaps to Lyos. If she wasn't even aware of the magnetic power of holiness, then she wouldn't know it either if she was altered. Her journey's forecast declared it was windy with a fair chance of insanity, but the driver had a devil chain around her neck and a wolf behind her. Metaphorically, not the troll werewolf hybrid. Therefore, she went ahead anyway.

The village was simple, straw hats on white round houses, inhabited by people with brown skin. She'd seen many such villages on her way here. Down at the sea lay the remnants of a ruin similar to the Ancient Ruins she'd seen in the east.

Its people were peaceful and their tranquility matched the quaint village. They didn't even fear when Spot passed by. When she saw the first leopard beastman, followed by a smaller catlike beastwoman, she understood why no one cared. Spot drew some attention only because wolves weren't common here and he was green.

Lyos led her into the largest hut, central to the village. Inside, a small council had gathered around tables and maps, speaking with what Luna guessed were traders.

"Hey, Orun, look what I found!" Lyos called.

When the council looked up, Luna tried to guess who might be the village leader. It was a small surprise when a petite woman stepped forward. She was brown skinned as most here, had wild white hair and an air that fit a church better than many in the church. Not what Luna expected. Putting aside that non-evil female rulers were all but unheard of outside Zephyria, she lacked the tough demeanor Luna expected in a leader.

"Orun, here's the weird flare we sensed. Luna Inverse. Luna, this is Orun, she's the leader of the village and she can operate the temple that can send you to the Tower of Wind."

"Pleased to meet you, Luna Inverse," Orun said, bowing slightly.

"Same," Luna said. She decided to let the lack of prefix slip, they likely had no such thing in these regions.

Orun excused herself with the traders she'd been negotiating with, during which Luna noticed Spot hadn't followed her in. His voice wasn't far off, so she pulled aside a heat curtain to lean out of a window.

Partially behind the curve of the wall, Spot was chatting with a human and some sort of antelope woman.

"Spot, did I give you permission to wander off?" Luna asked sweetly.

His ears flattened in submission and his tail shot between his legs. Slowly he turned. "No. I just thought it wasn't that far and—"

"Don't think. Do what you're told."

He picked up their luggage and scampered to join Luna inside.

"He wasn't bothering us," the beastwoman said.

"It's bothering me if I have to go find him. I don't plan to stay long." With that, she dropped the curtain and turned back.

Lyos stood there, arms crossed and reeking of irritation. "Just what the hell is that about?"

"What?"

Spot stumbled through the door at that moment.

"I didn't say get inside! Same rules as home, stay in sight but out of the shop zone," Luna told him.

"Off course, Luna, my mistake," he said, and he was out again.

"That," Lyos spat. There was a flare of rage, the kind that was born from rekindled memories. He better not be identifying her with that _m'lady_ of his, the devil in disguise.

The anger subsided, Luna could not tell whether it was resonance or his self control.

"Is something the matter?" asked a confused Orun as she rejoined them. Lyos bent closer to her and whispered something in her ear. Her eyes widened a little and she nodded.

"Please follow me," she said. "I shall have to return to work soon, so please hurry."

Orun led her to a small hut at the edge of the village, Lyos and Spot trailing behind. Lyos tried to make conversation with Spot, but Spot had caught onto Luna's mood and shut it off at every attempt.

The hut had only a fly curtain before it, so Luna peeked in after Orun entered and slammed her forehead into something solid. orun stumbled back against the cluttered wall.

Luna rubbed her forehead, pushing power to heal the bruise before it could form before she looked at the object Orun held.

It was only simple broom. Orun stood straight and held it out.

"If you want me to send you to Valwin, you must first prove yourself."

"Oh, we're playing the unworthy hero must become wiser quest game?" Luna asked, lifting the broom with overacted motions and inspecting it.

"This isn't for you. This is for my people. If this village is going to tolerate and feed you, then you pay them. You'll be embedding it with power, so it can be used against devils. After a while, I will see whether or not I feel comfortable sending someone like you to Valwin," Orun said a soft but firm voice. There was a little of a leader in her after all.

"Aren't either of you worried about Lina? You know, the missing sister?"

Lyos shrugged. "Lina will be fine where ever she is. Given what we heard and are seeing about you, we're probably doing her a favor not helping your family reunion."

"Fine," Luna said, and didn't say she planned to have a word with Lina about what exactly she had told them. "So, Sparky and Spiky, do I get a place to sleep? I need a bath too."

**· · · · · · ·**

Across the next day Luna was set to mundane, boring work like sweeping and other forms of cleaning. If this was where her lessons of humility were coming from, someone should have told these people she was a part time waitress. Mundane work was in no way a humiliation, Luna rather enjoyed it in fact. God (herself) knew the village could use some cleaning.

Orun spent most her day attending to village organization, supervising trade, overseeing business relations and settling disputes. Luna could think up a few ways to persuade her to send her on her way, but Lyos was always around. While he could not see the astral side, he could feel things in the way dragons did. Every time she tried astrally chipping at Orun, he noticed. He hadn't cast a spell on Orun; Luna suspected he might use the very moisture in the air as a way to keep track of his surroundings.

In fact, no spells existed here at all. Orun was a skilled wielder of resident magic, which she evoked from instruments and vessels that were tied to Valwin. Gestures of the hand was her dominant control method. Lyos could also control his innate magic with gestures, but often used his sword Banisher as a conduit. He claimed that since it had been barely five years since he'd learned to fight with magic properly and little else, Orun had a head start when it came to the flow. She had been trained since infancy.

Orun was a gentle woman, sometimes somber, often with a genuine smile and a kind but firm leader. She was what people would call a good human being without sense of irony or a need to say this as softener for some flaw. In fact, given the way the world worked around Luna's little sister, her existence just begged for there to be a more interesting evil twin somewhere. After all, where else would the fun be?

Luna felt like finding said sister and kicking her ass, anything to take her mind off this dusty town. She also closed a wager with Spot about the existence of said sister; not that Spot doubted her but she needed someone to bet against.

Three days after arrival, Orun was in the middle of some paperwork in her hut when Luna opened the door and slouched down on the chair opposite of her, one leg dangling over the armrest.

"Hey, my sister dropped a name in her letters I haven't placed yet. Fanan."

Orun froze.

"She ... she was my sister."

"Bullseye! Spot, I won the bet!" Luna hollered out the window. "That Fanan bitch was an evil twin!"

"Got it, Luna! I'll be getting snake now," Spot called back.

"Good boy. Make sure the poison's out," Luna said, satisfied as she sunk back in the chair.

Orun's miasma turned bitter, the kind of bitterness of those who had lost a loved one. Fanan was dead and Luna wondered why Lina had left the entire sister deal out of the letter. Meh, probably because she was afraid Luna would read too much into anything she said about dead sisters.

Luna expected Orun to change rooms (everyone had noticed by now Luna could not be made to leave if she did not want to).

"Snake?"

"I heard it tastes good."

"You would've sent him anyway even if you lost this ... this bet, wouldn't you?"

Luna shrugged, her smirk never ceasing.

Orun just clenched her fists and looked to the papers before her, doing a decent job to hide the depressive emotions that her sister's name summoned and the unsettled feeling Luna's eyeless presence caused. It was one of Luna's favorite things, how eerie people felt when they were stared at yet saw no eyes.

"I will not send you to Valwin if you keep acting like this."

Luna tapped her fingers on the armrest. "Yes, you will. It's just that I don't really feel like it right now."

Orun fiddled a little with her papers before continuing.

"How about dancing during one of the oncoming celebration?" Orun finally asked in a small voice. "Would you be interested?"

"Huh?"

"I-it is possible to command a small piece of godly power without touching the tools. This subtle wielding has kinder effects than the destruction they cause directly," she continued. "It is through a prayer dance we request this. Maybe you can fine tune your own powers into clairsentience."

"Desperate to get rid of me? The quickest way would be to let me see Valwin."

"I cannot let you do that."

" _Why not_?"

"Should you displease him, we may lose our magical tools or worse, the favorable wind we need to keep our fires burning. Valwin was once indifferent to humanity, but I'm sure you noticed his dragons are on the move. We do not want his negative attention, whether it is over your callous behavior or that strange chain around your neck."

"You're not the only one," Luna muttered.

"What do you mean?"

"Never mind. So why bring up that dance thing only now?"

"My sister's name reminded me. The dance requires two people to create a flow between them, she was my partner."

Luna folded her hands behind her head. "Hmmm. So you want me to take the part of your evil sister?"

Astrally she brushed a deformed claw past Orun's small self, not enough to harm her astral body, but it set her further on edge. As a holy woman, Orun had the smallest inkling of something being wrong.

"M-my sister ... my sister wasn't supposed to be evil."

Luna shrugged. "I don't care either way. Sure, I'll dance. No loss for me."

**· · · · · · ·**

The celebration was done every month to test fresh students and took place a few days later, giving Luna the time to grasp the basics of the performance. It would be done in the mostly rebuilt dome that doubled as transporter, temple and archive as part of one of several smaller celebrations native to these lands.

Luna let the preparations pass by and concentrated mostly on getting an outfit together that could hide that damn chain. Silver was the way to go, this smithing village had plenty. Lyos still had a connection with his mining hometown, so there was plenty of jewelry to go around. Very few things match with dog collar but Luna thought she did a fine job magic it work by mimicking the local shoulder ringers.

The celebration was simple, just this dance to be performed within the dome. Using said dome was new, the training beforehand had been outside. It was only since Lyos joining them that they would dance on sacred ground, because when he was around the devils did not dare approach when otherwise the holy magic would have drawn them in.

A sacred carved pattern at the center of the dome allowed a ring of people to stand around it, most of whom were family of the dancing pairs. The musicians had their place here as well, but the dancers would stand on the pattern.

Orun would begin it all. She stood on her toes in the middle of the pattern, raising an orange high in the tips of her fingers. On the first thrill of the strings, she dropped her heels and released the sphere, which remained afloat. Orun spread her arms, held the pose for a few seconds as the sphere lit inside.

She clapped her hands together. The sphere burst between her hands, clouding into a swarm of smaller orange spheres.

At this sign, couples broke from the ring around. Each tapped their fingers against one of the spheres and drew out a veil of light in mother of pearl colors. Luna too jumped in and tapped the same sphere as Orun did.

Each of the couples held the veil between their fingers as they moved to the rhythm, commanding it with wordless magic. The art was to keep the veils as substantial as possible and never to touch the spheres that remained afloat in their midst. Luna thought it could be called a game, but no one took her serious when she had said so.

At first the dance was just like in practice, but that changed as the magic of the pattern below their feet slowly responded to the items that were in alcoves all around. Holy power was drawn into the veils, bring along a warm, soft feeling. As the power grew denser, the people changed. Those that danced first, then those that watched on the sidelines.

The two women who had been squabbling about a goat's ownership settled their dispute, the children who felt bad over having been denied early candy no longer cared. White magic having soothing effects was not an unfamiliar concept to Luna, there had to be a shamanic side to this method. Or perhaps this was where white magic and holy magic truly had no difference.

The trance took a hold of her too, pulling her into sacred resonance with the world around.

All others were human, but she walked here as Siephied.

Valwin's presence she never saw or heard or truly felt, but she _knew_ it now. On this end of the world was the Tower of Wind, stark on its opposite was Vrabazard's home, the Pillar of Fire. Two holy nests, the Earth Bridge and Water Vein were without gods, but still had godly resonance, the latter more so than the former since Ragradia's corpse still was there to seal Lei Magnus. Deep between them burned a blue light, Megiddo beyond which Rangort's Hell lay.

As if it had always been knowledge to her.

As if the gods were immaculate, true creation of Siephied. Not a remaining scrap doomed to human souls. Not like her, but she didn't care for the rot anymore either.

Rot? She felt the start of healing. Even Lyos's astral form, which she could see far above the crowd that hid his mortal body, it didn't seem so bad anymore. Luna threw herself into the flow. She knew more the longer she danced.

The old battle long ago, Shabranigdu's ugly self disrupting the flow. The harmony of the flow, the detail of the world.

The humans around were insignificant, but so much closer. They thought this dance was beautiful, she could taste it in their miasma.

She remember Siephied eating miasma and feeling content. But Siephied never thought of anything as beautiful. It was irrelevant to a being from the astral plane. All Siephied needed was the flow and its instinct satisfied.

Luna didn't quite like that. There were a lot of things she thought were beautiful even if it didn't fit in her little sphere of need and self.

Right?

Not that she felt like leaving her town and seeing the world. Not that she cared. Not that she ever was a savior unless she had to.

Like the gods, she stayed at home if nothing bothered her.

As she danced now, she was fine with that, yet her conscious mind remembered herself feeling loathing to any parallel between her and the gods.

The flow pulled her along in the trance, save for the devil chain around her neck. A grain of sand in the oyster, but it was enough to keep her grounded enough for one thought to surface.

"~ _This is not me_. ~"

Building up resistance, Luna pushed herself out of the harmony. She dropped the veil.

All of the wide world returned to be only this room to her. Bland earthen walls and people in colors she did not like and music she did not care for. She was just Luna again, yet even now she did not stop feeling the immediate flow.

The music did not stop immediately, not until Orun herself stopped dancing. It took the woman a moment to find herself again. By then, every eye was on Luna.

Orun's hands twisted around the veils, pulling them closer to herself. Luna tasted the disappointment in her miasma.

"Are you tired? I'm sure you're not used to this heat, perhaps you should drink something ... ehm ..."

"What did you make me do?" Luna said with a calm, friendly voice. The kind of voice she used on troublesome customers that shouldn't know what she truly thought. "Whatever it was, it was not natural."

A chill took over the dome, every last conversation died as the air became thick with anger. The miasma of astral beings could become so intense even organic beings could sense it and while Luna was not quite murderous, it was strong enough to thicken.

"Then what happened?" Orun asked.

"Leeches in my mind. What am I supposed to do, ask the gods nicely so I'll stay sane?"

"Spirituality is not merely worship. It may be entirely about inflection," Orun gently said. "If you resonated like that with the world, it is by your own nature."

"I did not sign up for spirituality," Luna said. "What would I ascend to anyway? I'm already Siephied reborn, I don't need a link with the other pieces."

"You're not Siephied. Siephied's cessated," Lyos said behind her. "I'm no Ragradia either. We just have their power, that's all. None of their personality, knowledge and especially not a bloody right to disturb a celebration."

Luna didn't turn, avoiding to see his disgusting astral form. "Who are you to tell me anything?"

"I tell you as someone who thought being the Knight of the Aqualord was everything."

"And Lina cured you?"

"Nah, Nameless did. Lina helped me in other ways. She—" She tasted his miasma far more sharply than before, even at this distance. That was new and she didn't like it.

"Sobstory at midday o'dial," Luna said as she walked out. "Spare me. I'm going to bed."

She left behind the veils and the people, but no matter how much she tried to shake off that new sensation of the world around her, it remained.

**· · · · · · ·**

Luna walked across a range of stupidly idyllic mountains with too muchEdelweiß and white cotton candy draped around the peeks. Pretty as it was, the paths were difficult to travel. Little loose rocks everywhere and only solid wall on one side and a canyon on the other made her feet slip more than once.

Every path she had walked on so far had collapsed under her, no matter how stable it had looked. Luna had trekked through mountains during her knightly training, but never had she encountered such a thing. The constant falling made it really difficult to keep hidden from the dragons. It was like she weighed five tons.

"Siephiedammit!" she called as she slipped off a ridge once again. The curse echoed through the entire mountain.

Wait a second.

She never said Siephiedammit because ... well, that would be like asking herself to damn someone. So redundant.

She also wasn't five tons and she had no reason to hide from dragons when she could just kick their ass.

There was only one explanation for this.

Dreams.

And not her own to boot.

Orun had been right after all, because unless that snake had any hallucinogenic effects, she was in someone's dreamscape. This wasn't exactly finding Lina, but it was a world more precise than tuning into Divinity Network. And this happened just after a short hour of sacred concentration?

Ooh, she could do interesting things with this.

Luna was sure this was Filia's dreamscape. The worldly mechanics were as observed someone who had a much harder time traveling mountain ranges by foot due to weight and someone for whom avoiding dragons was a law of life. That, and the part of legions golden dragons around about their need to find and kill the ancient dragon. Huh, those hadn't seemed out of place before.

"Woah, Filia. You're coping so well with that whole genocidal dragons thing," Luna muttered as she climbed back on the ridge.

She wasn't usually aware when she was dreaming, but now she was she noticed a lot of things out of place. Idealized mountains aside, she was wearing the outfit of Liliane's Siephied Knights. Or rather, the way Filia saw it. Luna knew the outfit to be a bit coarse and heavy, but in this dream the dark cape billowed as if it weighed nothing and the golden shoulder pads were more gold than coppery.

She whistled and from then on, Spot had been at her side the entire time.

Well, a version of Spot. Luna broke out laughing when the dreamscape granted her an boar sized neon green poodle. Luna had once complained to Filia about keeping him outside cause he got green fur all over the place and was huge, but she had never said _what_ he was.

"Spot, find Filia."

Poodle Spot wagged his tail as he happily skipped down a mountain path that hadn't been there before.

Sometimes, she saw a figment of Xelloss assault a flock of dragons and torture them to death, and at point she passed what probably had been the temple of the ancient dragons. It was littered with corpses of both gold scales and dark feathers.

Spot led her away from these nightmarish figments and down the ground lands, a trek that would have taken weeks if this had been a real landscape. Luna wondered whether Filia's conscious was aware of every facet of this dreamscape, because her own dreams were no landscapes she could observe from an omniscient point of view. Luna's dreaming was aware in only one location and didn't get high definition, but from the looks of it it was different for a prophet.

Filia's refuge was a quaint little brick town that had entirely too much tea, ceramic and icecream shops for such a small place. Everything else was gardens, parks and cottages, its inhabitants humans and beast folk. Luna walked a little slower when she saw this, wondering whether or not she'd have to do something about the Spot figment, which was gradually changing into the hybrid she knew him to be. Filia would be annoying about him if she found out.

As soon as the Spot figment had pointed out an inn, she killed the neon green abomination and buried it in a nearby garden. Using dream logic to make the blood vanish, she stepped into the inn and suddenly was a dancer. Going with the flow, she performed the same dance she had learned earlier. It carried none of the enchantment, though, as the sensation of flow dance started by Orun was not known to Filia.

The music ended and the people in the inn applauded her performance, and Luna bowed.

"That was beautiful, Luna."

That was definitely Filia's voice, though the lack of miss stood out. Luna looked across the crowd to find her.

If she hadn't known Filia, she wouldn't have guessed she was a dragon. Blending in perfectly amidst the humans was a Filia almost like the one from real life, but not quite. The elven ears were gone and instead of her priest outfit, she wore a dirndl in greens and pinks. With her she carried a basket full of jars filled with marmalade. She was in the middle of selling these.

Jumping off the stage, she hopped across a few tables to join her.

"Hey Filia. You might wanna check your soul gate. I'm a total newbie at soul surfing yet I just fell into your head without even meaning to."

Delighted, Filia hooked her fingers together. "You did it! You're using your divine powers to tape into the flow like the gods do! Luna, you're getting in touch with the spiritual side of yourself!"

"Huh ... I guess I am," she said as she stole a finger of marmalade. It tasted of cherry, far more purely than in real life. "Hmm, I can taste food in this dream. I never can in mine. Neat."

"Such details come with being an experienced lucid dreamer," Filia said while pouring Luna a cup of wine. It was best not to question where the cup came from, especially since the inn had been replaced by a corn field, wide below the open blue sky. There were dragons in the distance, but they didn't seem to notice them and Filia no longer was worried. Her family was there too, sitting around a picnic sheet on flattened corn. Luna sat down.

"So, where did you disappear to, Luna? I hope Liliane didn't change her mind about sealing you. " Filia started preparing sandwiches, aided by the figments around her. They handed her things as she requested, but she didn't really interact with them.

"Oh, yeah, that. I'm not in Zephyria anymore. Was gonna drop you a note, but some stupid devil knocked over the closet with my crystal ball and it didn't survive. We gave it a beautiful eulogy, you should have been there."

Filia nodded grimly. "Don't you just hate it when they just get into your house and make a problem?"

"Absolutely. Let me tell you, it's the queen bitch—"

"Luna, please don't use that language in my dreams! Besides, Liliane is not that bad. Sure, she may be a little close minded, but ... " Filia's eyes went wide. "You weren't talking in metaphor."

Luna looked over her shoulder to see a horse sized beige wolf with swan wings.

"Huh, interesting. That's got some details right. Am I leaking memories?"

"You are putting forth knowledge, as you are the god here ... " Filia said absently. A deep frown appeared. "Xelloss said he had no reason to believe you were involved. I thought he couldn't lie, but if the beast monarch sought you out, then he must have lied or he didn't know. I don't know what's more unlikely."

Luna tilted her head, trying to get an idea on what bothered Filia so much about this. What did it matter when devils were likely to backstab someone one way or another?

It took Luna a few seconds to realize that she had just said that out loud. Her first clue was the corn flattened by sheer divine force from the skies and the echo of a booming version of her own voice. She could have sworn there was a backdrop of angel choirs too.

Dammit. Her subconscious had just as much to say in this dream as her conscious self.

Curtsy of a disturbed Filia, the surrounding melted away into a temple hall so large it could fit a whole swarm of dragons. A red shadow fell from behind Luna. She looked over her shoulder

There was the crumbled statue of Vrabazard, shining red as it burned. The picnic sheet was still there, and so was Filia's troupe, all fixated on this statue. Wolf Zelas had sat down and was scratching herself behind her ear while a new Poodle Spot took a leak against the statue.

So this was what Filia thought of her now?

"Oh no, no you don't. You are not associating me with those lazy space blobs, Filia Ul Copt!"

"I can't help it, you're using godly power to be here!"

Luna placed her fingers against her forehead in thought, and by walked a Lina figment in the same thoughtful pose. Luna dropped her hand at once, disliking the association.

"Okay, let's clear this all up. Liliane is not involved. Zelas is in league with Rangort, they're using me as a proxy to find Lina cause supposedly, it won't be suspicious to Scabbs and Puffy if I want to find her, but if Rangort does it they'll want to know what's going on. Xelloss may or may not be in the dark for similar reason, and you shouldn't fret about that."

"But what do _we_ really know?" Filia asked.

What were the devils plotting, what were the dragons plotting?

Was Luna really the evil sister out of the equation?

That last one, and only that last one thundered from the sky too :

"IT IS A RIDICULOUS MATTER! MY ESTEEMED SELF IS NOT THE ONE WHO NEARLY DESTROYED THE WORLD JUST SO MY BOYFRIEND COULD LIVE A FEW MORE YEARS! HOW CAN ORUN CAST MYSELF AS THE EVIL SISTER? CLEARLY IT IS LINA."

A confused Filia looked around at a vague double Orun and a cleaner version of the village. "Luna, what am I missing?"

"Eh, nothing. We should be talking about more important things. Orun didn't even really cast me like that anyway."

"BUT IT FELT LIKE IT!" Luna Above declared.

"Eh ... I don't believe you're the evil sister. You are not even twins. But ..." Filia's dreamscape turned very dark. "Miss Lina is very scared of you ... after I've seen her in face of Dark Star and Ruby Eye, I wonder why? What did you do to her?"

"Eh, don't overthink it. You know how things are a lot more scary when you're young? Besides, she had it coming. She sold recorded Visions of my under the shower to a bunch of boys."

"She did? That is vile!"

"THY HAST NO IDEA!" Luna Above declared. Ominous clouds started to pack together. "BEHOLD AND LET ME ILLUSTRATE HOW PEOPLE LOOKED AT MY ESTEEMED SELF FOR THE REST OF THE YEAR."

"No!" Luna cried, only to be ignored by herself as the scene changed to the village full of snickering people ... and what Luna saw and tasted on the astral plane, knowledge now up for grabs. Under the surface of reverence and politeness, the people in the village saw a broken pedestal. She wasn't the good girl anymore, because many didn't believe Lina had been able to sneak up on her, sharp sensed as she was said to be. She must have done it on intention.

Filia covered her mouth with a hand, and Luna hated that she could neither see her astral side nor taste her miasma.

"ARE THOU LAUGHING AT ME?"

Filia shook her head. "No, I'm just learning a lot of details I have no business knowing. I understand now why you're afraid of what the gods might take along when their power reaches to us. If this is what you can't help but perceive, I can't even imagine what they can do when inside our minds."

"OH. OKAY. BECAUSE THE LAUGHING MAKES MY ESTEEMED SELF FEEL BAD."

Desperately Luna clasped her own mouth shut with both hands. There was no living with herself after this.

"I AM ALSO REALLY AWARE THAT IT'S RIDICULOUS HOW WORKED UP I CAN GET OVER LITTLE THINGS LIKE STUFF THROWN ON THE FLOOR," the merciless Luna Above continued as the clouds broke to let through a lone ray of sunlight. "BUT REALLY, FATHER NEEDS TO LEARN TO PUT THE TOILET SEAT DOWN."

Much to Luna's horror, she found herself hiding behind a rock. In the real world she would have done no such thing, but here the rock just conveniently was there all of the sudden.

Filia gave a little laugh and without miasma to taste, Luna had no idea whether it was mocking, uncomfortable or something else.

"CEASE THY LAUGHTER, THY INSOLENT SILLY PERSON!"

"I mean cut it out," Luna grumbled from behind her rock.

Filia stepped in view and sat down at her side, lips pressed into a thin line. "I'm afraid your subconscious has hijacked my five year old self's fantasy of how Siephied would act."

"That's all you're laughing about?"

Filia made a dismissive handwave. "You'll have to accept that if you walk in the shadow of Lina Inverse, your dignity shall burn on her altar."

"Which translates to the sacrifice of your cool factor if you ever follow Lina," said a Xelloss figment who popped up on Luna's other. "And an absolute accent on how humanly weak you truly are."

Luna flicked a flare of white fire at him at the same time Filia hurled her mace. In this reality, they could actually hit. But, Xelloss just kept listing definitions of how pathetic everyone was.

"THIS IS GOING TO BE A PROBLEM," Luna realized _and_ involuntarily declared as Luna Above, this time with a far louder angelic choir.

"Oh, don't worry, Luna. I won't tell anyone about anything embarrassing that happens in here," Filia said mechanically, staring past her with wide eyes for a second or three. Then she turned away.

Luna looked past figment Xelloss to see that figment Zelas had turned into her aristocratic human form, lovely as in reality except her behavior was ... off. She winked at Luna as she lay on a four poster bed.

"WHY YES, MY HOLY SELF DOES THINK SHE IS ATTRACTIVE," Luna Above said with solemn repose.

Luna grabbed Filia by the cloak. "Filia, dream exit. Now."

"I'm afraid that's out of my control. I have a window open, but you are far stronger than I am. If you're still here, you do not really want to leave."

"How can I not want to leave when this is the second most humiliating thing in my life, and I can't even make anyone pay?"

"Only this much? It's no regular occurrence living with Lina?" Filia asked, putting a finger to her chin. "Zelgadis told me that it took mere days before his mysterious heartless swordsman imago was ruined by Lina. As her sister, I would have thought she would have affected you long ago."

"Lina used to run from me. This is the first time I'm involved with her in a way beyond scary big sis."

"BEYOND EVIL SISTER MY ESTEEMED SELF MEANS."

"You shut up!" Luna snapped at the sky, which responded by shining a little more sun.

Filia put her on Luna's shoulder. "Luna, didn't you just tell me not to fret? While we're here, how about we have some fun?"

With a snap of her fingers, there was a figment of Liliane. "We can hit everyone we want to hit and I'm sure you'll soon learn to control your subconscious. It just needs a little practice."

"THIS COULD ACTUALLY BE USEFUL FOR SOMETHING I WANT TO DO."

Filia looked positively giddy (as opposed to negatively giddy, which Luna did when she rectified people).

"Okay, you learn me to control dreams, and I'll teach you a bit about astral locks on souls. Deal?"

"Deal."

**· · · · · · ·**

When Luna woke in the late morning, she was greeted with the sight of sun on the straw ceiling and Siephied's ribcage on the astral plane. With a groan, she pushed up and rubbed her eyes. For all of the dream, she had not seen the corpse or even realized it had been gone.

Now, the dimorphism of her soul and Siephied's power was stronger than ever. Ironically, those two facets had become more one than ever. It made so little sense that her human mind reeled at her astral body when it was more and more ... right. Closing her eyes did not make the corpse vanish, but she felt the flow further around herself and could feel the physical world through it a sharper. Grains of sand on the floor, all the detail of Spot's fur and the soft breeze in the curtains. It was worse than after yesterday's dance.

She breathed out and opened her eyes again, but made no move to get out of bed. She needed to think.

In the dreams, everything didn't just look different, it felt different. A sunset was beautiful when seen through the mind of one who cared for such things, even if Luna herself did not. How easy it was to take on the mask of another person, once inside, once a personality could be lived through on the same principles as her own mind. Just different triggers. Filia's dreams always had beautiful skies and Luna remembered them as such even as consciously she had not paid attention to it.

This variant of sharing energy wasn't remotely as disturbing as what had happened earlier during the dance, perhaps because it didn't change who and how she was. Oh, it exposed her alright, but she didn't lose herself into thinking it was alright to be something she wasn't. She couldn't pin point what the dance had made her be, but she didn't like it. In contrast, the dream experience was just a mask to wear.

The price? Having her embarrassing secrets not merely exposed, but blared from the sky. Not that it mattered much, Filia had greater shames and deeper fears, she didn't make a big fuss out of Luna's secrets.

Luna felt like making a fuss about Filia's secrets though.

Filia's fears were all over her mental landscape, lurking close outside the nests she created for herself. She went through moods as if death chased her and her dreamscape changed accordingly. One could step from a boiler room where she hid from a mob to a Sailoon dancing hall, and it would make sense in Filia's emotional landscape. Melancholy and guilt mixed poorly with the fascination she had with cultures or her shallow indignation about small offenses. Luna couldn't understand how Filia lived with herself being such a contrast in five directions.

Val was worst. Whenever the figment of Val was around, he was a cute kid within her line of sight but a devil the moment she turned her back. Every time this happened she would look over her shoulder, worried, only to find a child. There would be a tense smile and a hand inviting him to step ahead. He'd smile back and take her hand as if he had never looked at her with cold hatred. This too was something Luna only became aware of now, because within the dream it had not been important to think about.

Luna knew Filia had issues, but hadn't understood. Knowing and understanding were very different things, Liliane had said this so often Luna had gagged on the words. Ha, truth after all.

Dammit. Being so familiar with someone meant an awful lot of responsibility. Not fun to think about.

The seed of doubt sprouted. Did she really want to keep doing it, exposing herself like this? The dreamscape was more benign as an extension of her holy power, but not entirely safe either. If Luna could get into Filia's mind, then so could the gods. She didn't want to meet them anymore, not that she cared to before.

But exactly because she knew so little, it would be useful to learn the full extent of what holy powers and souls could do. Filia sure as hell could use it, and understanding it would give Luna a defense if it ever were to be done to her by gods or devils.

And it most certainly _did_ matter that Xelloss did not seem to know what Zelas was up to.

Speaking of that, it only stood out after she started thinking about dream logic and what was questioned, but Lyos and Orun had not asked anything about her search, not why or whether she had exhausted all other options.

Whatever was going on, it had the signs of a legends and secret games. Luna needed to know more if she wanted to walk out of it. Plus, even if she was weak before the players this time, it wouldn't do to act like she was. Her little sister, smither of gods and devils, feared her and Luna was damn well expand that reputation from the physical realm to the spiritual one.

And Luna Above whispered that perhaps she was going to dream again because she really liked seeing the world without an overlay of corpse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter draws heavily on the manga Knight of the Aqualord. Lyos never met Orun, but Lina probably told him about Orun's village. The wind tunnels and the dome weren't destroyed during the battle, so Orun probably rebuilt the village. If Lyos ever wanted a place to settle down after Lina left, Orun's village would be a better place than something more loyal to the local religion, which is a tad too power hungry.
> 
> Dream visiting is canon in one of the Slayers movies, where Rowdy Gabriev does it to Lina so he can gain her aid. He can't control it all that well, so his memories serve as foundation and Lina can somewhat hijack the space.


	9. Filia's Blashemy

In full dragon form, Filia rolled down the Everlasting Leaf Pile. She reached the bottom before Luna did, if only by a mile or two. With a plop, she spread over the giant cranberry the pile was on. She was early, but at the cost of her grace. Luna somehow managed to plummet in an elegant yet nonchalant way. Off course, Luna just had to be avant garde about falling. Filia consoled herself by understanding Luna had less limbs to flail around with.

"Filia," Luna said while somersaulting the final stretch, "Didn't we have a topic tonight?"

"I think so, but we got derailed while I complained about Xelloss's taste in design," Filia said, scratching her snout as she looked up to the tea-filled sky (technically her dragon arms were too tiny for this but one doesn't care about that in dreams).

"How did we get from there to Cranberry Island?"

"We asked that in the pink pine forest already and then dreamed about cotton candy flavors and got—"

Luna held up her hands quickly. "No derailing anymore. Soul fences. Right?"

"I do recall you saying such, but not why?"

"Wanna control dream flow better."

"I AM IN THE BELIEF THAT KNOWING HOW SOUL BARRIERS WORK ALLOW ME A DEFENSE AGAINST MY SACRED SIBLINGS TAMPERING WITH MY MENTAL FACULTIES," Luna Above declared.

"Mental faculties, really?" Luna said. "If this is your toddler self's idea of Siephied, can we like reset it to something less embarrassing? I don't like that stupid!"

Filia stood up and shook the last leafs out of her mane, which fluffed up a little. "Luna, we're getting off topic ...ehm, Luna?"

Luna was pulling out a gigantic version of a Jillas cannon and aimed at the sky. With a thunderous crash, the cannonball hurled through the clouds.

"OH WOES!" Luna above thundered. Down fell a giant red plush dragon, burning in white flares.

"Luna, don't shoot at your own subconscious!"

"I'm just shooting at the figment you made," she said as she tossed away the cannon. "It's got no holy power of mine in it."

"Oh, is that so? I never ... no, no, off topic again."

"Right. Okay. Soul holes. That was it."

"Not fences?"

"Whatever. So, something is pulling me back whenever I think about wanting to go back, so I'm just going to do that now. Follow me."

"Ready whenever you are." Filia pulled out a needle and pinpricked the cranberry. It exploded.

After a few moments without gravity, they fell into a sea. Luna crossed her arms and let the water engulf her, apparently fine with the sensation. Filia herself had to fight off the idea she needed to drown, and on a deeper level the idea she was doing something forbidden.

Light became dim as they sunk deeper.. Just as Filia was getting worried over why nothing else happened, Luna swam over to sit on her shoulders.

"TO THE LEFT AND TWIRLS A LITTLE SIDEWAYS INTO THE GRAY STREAM," said Luna Above the giant plush, who was spontaneously floating alongside them all along. Filia obeyed, while Luna adopted the tactic of ignoring the overly cute thing.

Without a clear idea how they had gotten there, but the knowledge they were at the end of the path, Filia in elven form and Luna in her armor stood on the bottom of the sea, which was also a fog filled taiga. There were as much rocks as there were trees for as far as Filia could see, sometimes the trees were rocks and stones formed out of tree.

"Thrilling," Luna said.

Plush Luna Above had landed behind them and was blocked a lot of the view that direction, but Filia noticed something just above it and beyond the fog.

With a few quick strides, she walked around the plush. Luna followed her as the giant plush clumsily turned.

"Meh, hedges," Luna said.

To the east and west, to above and deep into earth was a network of dark gold metalwork, forged like vines. The shapes of the vines were erratic, sometimes curling elegantly and other times straight and unrelenting to flow. Only if one saw the whole did it fall into rhythm. It felt like it went on beyond the darkness of the sky, encasing all of herself.

Gingerly, Filia laid her hands on the nearest curl. It was like touching the essence of herself and yet she was the farthest away from who she was. A cold awareness settled over her as everything trivial was pushed away. Not significant anymore. Purely being, undiluted, simply a need to exist, yet not herself. Filia consisted of many small details.

She pulled back hand, clenching it close to her chest.

"Got the vibes, eh? _That's_ what the gods exist like, reveling into that pure, simplistic existence. Disgusting idiots, think they're better because of that," Luna said. She spit on the ground. "Gotta admit though there were times I was tempted to exist like that ... Hey ... Filia?"

Filia was aware she was being spoken to, but she couldn't move. Here on the border of one for of being and another, it wasn't so bad. A little of both worlds, a little of —

A sharp pain shot through her. It was shapeless and had no form or location anywhere in her body, yet it was so real Filia cried out. The world, however imaginary, drew back into focus. Damp earth was below her fingers, and the mixed sensation of holy wind and waves all around her.

Luna held out a hand. Shaking a little, Filia took it and stood. "Did you ... do that?"

"Yep. Pain's the quickest way to snap people out of that kinda trance. C'mon, show me the god's entrance."

"We're right before it," she said.

At her will, the network melted into a spiral that formed a ring at its center. Expending around this ring was a second circle, and finally two crossed almond shapes melted together to encase the rings at their center. Filia didn't know what to think of this four pointed sigil. Hexagrams were of the gods, pentagrams of the devils. What was this?

Luna tilted her head a little and said, "Huh. I get it now. I hitchhike here on Valwin's flow to Ragradia's power. Gotta say, this flow stuff is useful after all."

"Luna, this is a four pointed symbol! Do you realize what that implies? There may yet be other sigils we have no idea about!"

"Yeah, eh, fascinating."

"BORING," Luna Above declared. Luna set the plush on fire with a snap of her fingers.

"Skipping the metaphysical crap, Filia. What matter is that that shit's carved into your soul, but it doesn't ... your souls doesn't feel damaged. Weird."

"Ah, so you have experience with soul damage? What other people had it?" Filia had never learned what Luna meant when she wanted to check up on her being tampered with, this was as good a time as any to ask.

Luna stretched her arm, knacked it back with a finger pointed at herself and grinned. "At least Siephied's a quiet roommate. As silent as the grave."

"Oh, Luna ..." Filia reached out, intending to place a hand on her shoulder, but Luna brushed her hand away.

"Don't worry about it. I'm not broken, Siephied's power fills the bits and pieces missing. Let's focus on this nice little hole here. From what I can tell, this sieve allowed Vrabazard to push in tidbits of energy. I'd bet you that in priest class they said you had to learn to accept the messages of the gods, but what you really did was carve out this hole. The most extreme thing you can let happen is them taking over your body, right?"

Filia nodded. "That did bother me at the beginning, but I was taught it was a great honor. I don't think so now, but—"

"No woeful nostalgia. You got any spells that deal with souls?"

"Absolutely, that would be Holy Rezast."

"Cast it," Luna said.

"Huh? I'm not even awake!"

"So what? I'll make it work, I do wordless magic all the time." Luna took a few steps away, turned around and pointed at the ground. "There."

Well, if Luna said so, she was probably right. Filia folded her hands and concentrated, but kept her eyes open.

"Life Law Circle," Filia heard herself whisper. It wasn't the name of the spell, but it was its true meaning.

A thin red circle appeared between her and where Luna stood. Instead of the vague white flow upwards, however, the forces around Luna pulled towards it. Not only Luna's power, but also the wind and water magic were drawn in through the sigil.

Luna poked the circle with her boot. Filia would have imagined a more interesting way to probe magic, but it just wasn't Luna's style.

"What do you think your Holy Rezast does?"

Filia sensed there was going to be a nasty revelation, but she spoke without hesitation. "It allows ghosts to move to the afterlife, and if cast on the living gives them new energy."

"Let me tell you something fun. When the devil barrier was raised, everyone within lost their holy magic but not the need for it. Someone reverse engineered Holy Rezast and came up with Megiddo Flare. It does the exorcism thing, but it also gives the living a feeling of serenity, so they say. Let's say Megiddo Flare isn't designed well enough to only tune into ghostly emotions because it's a shabby imitation. Those living, they don't get serenity, it takes away rage and frustration. What does that tell you about the fine tuned version, Holy Rezast? Maybe that new energy is just negative facet taken away? It's the same trick as coffee, except by removing all negativity people can draw energy from the flow better."

After two times of learning devastating truths about the gods, Filia wasn't fazed all that much anymore. Seven years ago, it was her religion's temple ordering genocide, three years ago it was learning that heaven did not exist. All she did was sigh. Holy Rezast tampered with the minds and hearts of souls, dead or alive. It wasn't much of a surprise anymore, given the amorality that existed around the deities.

Luna smiled. Not smirked, an actual smile.

"Good, no angsty stuff this time," she said. With two strides, she was before Filia and pulled her into the circle. "Now, let's reverse engineer this so we can use it on gods, or maybe just for more specific stuff that snipping away negative feelings."

"What?"

"I told you, the best defense is to understand how the enemy's weapon works. I've got a grip of holy magic, you know technique. We can sort this out."

"How would you try that?"

"We draw in a little of Valwin's extended mind, the stuff I hitchhike one. It's out there, the only reason he's not questioning what I do in here is cause he's without passion. We can exploit that."

Filia stared at Luna, stunned. "You were always so suspicious of the gods messing with us. How can you try to do the same to them?"

"Filia," Luna said with a sudden iciness to her voice. "We're just going a few steps ahead. Using that soul gate, we can pinch off a little of Valwin's mind power and—"

"No. I can't. Not like this, it's not necessary, it's not right."

"Why not? Your kid got mindwiped, didn't he? Don't tell me you'd rather have him as before."

"That's different!" she snapped.

Luna's lips became a thin line and Filia sensed something very wrong about the atmosphere. Filia got an inkling of her infamous terror, but only that little. After all, Filia was (in)famous (amongst certain circles) for being fearless.

Filia crossed her arms and glared back. " _No_."

"You're just going to pass up this chance? Right here and now, we could do something that had never been done before!" She sounded unusually desperate.

"We don't know anything," Filia said. "So, no. I'm willing to cross lines but only for good reasons."

"It's not a good reason that I might need it?"

"The gods haven't threatened you, and Lyos and Lina proved that possession by devils can be beaten. I'm sure you're stronger than Lyos, so this little exercise would only be a hobby. No."

"Fine. Be that way." Luna kicked the edge of the circle into pieces, and the spell's power dissolved.

Filia left her there and didn't look back, but the singed Siephied plush followed her through the rest of her dream.

**· · · · · · ·**

As questionable as her exploits in dreamscapes were, real life had worse scenarios. Thoughts of what could have been cropped up in unguarded moments.

A Grand Priest himself, Bazard Ul Copt had envisioned a spiritual life for his daughter, spoonfeeding her religious creed before she could even fly. She'd aspired to become a servants of the Most Venerable One herself, as many of her siblings had done either as soldiers or priests. When she alone became a priestess of the primary clan of the east in its cathedral itself, it had been the pride of his life. She would follow in his wingstrokes by educating the weak of faith, returning to the right path those poor souls led astray by devils and their inherent sin. In the face of evil, she was to stand strong and courageous even if it meant painful death. Her last breath would carry the words of holiness and she would never bow to the darkness. There were whispered tales of horror, of priests tormented to death by the five retainers and their courts. Those fearful manipulations were among the evil she would be protecting others from, that they may find strength before the trials of the devils.

If nothing else, she was doing the protection against evil thing. By all that lived, that pot was going to get _out_ of Xelloss's hands.

It was her afternoon off, for crying out loud. Gravos had came running into the house with the dire news that Xelloss had invaded the elvish kitchens. Lina had told her dreadful takes of Xelloss's cooking, which smelled foul beyond reason and involved living ingredients, but the most horrible was that apparently he knew his dishes could kill golden dragons. She left her tea and ran.

Sure enough, Xelloss had been about to feed an unholy brew to some poor elves who were trying to politely refuse with dumb excuses. Filia preferred a more hands-on approach of resisting evil, hands filled with lord Mace. She teleported right behind Xelloss and took a swing.

Off course she didn't hit, she never did. Before she realized, he stood behind her, grabbed her tail and pulled it up into the momentum of her movement. She smacked face first into the floor, right into the pot he'd dropped there.

The clan of Vrabazard had been so wrong. If they'd had the smallest idea about Xelloss beyond the Dragon Slayer, there would have been lessons about self control in the face of insufferable smugness. Instead, she got to thank seven years of running a business and intense trauma at her clan's actions for what composure she retained. Slowly she stood up, careful not to slip on the vile brew. It stank of sewer, as befitting to someone like him.

"Miss Filia, if you were so desperate for first taste, you could have just asked."

Now she saw him up front, wearing that pink apron (it was kinda cute, but not on him), she added laughter to the things to be controlled. She just puffed up her cheeks, raised her nose and stomped back to the door. Behind here, there was a disappointed huff. Any second now ...

He phased between her and the exit.

"Now now, you've ruined the meal of these poor elves. Don't you think you should make it up to them?"

She set her hands on her hips, letting rage build up for tempting moments before turning her thoughts to that happy time she was awarded first prize from the ceramics guild. Her mind a little clearer, she saw the trap. If she got angry he would shame her into agreeing to cook something better, and who knew what would happen then. What the other people involved wanted was supposed to be forgotten.

She spun around to the elves. "Are you hungry at all?"

"Eh ... n-no, m'lady," one of them stammered as he climbed to shaky feet.

"That settles it then. There seems to be smoke coming from the supply room, better go put that out," she said happily. For bonus, she raised a finger in Xelloss style. He hated that. "Use sand spells, so the flour bags will not get soaked."

"Off course!" The fearful elves couldn't leave quick enough.

"Spoilsport," Xelloss muttered. He was looked disappointed, which gave Filia something to be genuinely happy about.

"It's my pleasure!" she declared with a formal flair and a curtsy. Slick, sticky hair fell around her face and it felt so irritating, but she pushed that aside to play the role of miss shopkeeper. Always keep smiling, no matter how wrong the customer is.

"I wonder, did you meet someone else to vex?"

So typical of him to pretend she was the one looking to vex others.

"I don't feed on negative emotions, trash," she said, standing straight and picking the next happy thing off her mental checklist. "In fact, I'm very much about happiness lately. These lovely snowy mountains have been reminding me of one of my favorite songs. Cotton flowers in the wind, mother Hulda has the winter pinned ... "

She couldn't proclaim how wonderful life was with the same vigor as Amelia, but indirect measures seemed to work just as well. Xelloss said nothing. Perhaps it was too much to hope, but maybe he'd do something dorky to save face.

Off course, even if she refused to play she couldn't really win.

"Trying to change the game, miss Filia?" That haughty tone had replaced the mock politeness.

"Just the menu," she said as coldly as she could, even though the urge to pull out her mace was stirring again. "But not too much. You have your uses, the kind the gods don't cover."

"Hmm."

As she shoved past him, he ran his hand through her hair. The stinking stew fell out in dry clumps before burning up in blue fire. She stopped, but he'd vanished before she could ask what that had been about.

For all the ways she was used to Xelloss, it unsettled her if he did something _benign_. Lina had told her he'd been like that as long as they'd known him as a devil, someone not easily classified as typically evil devil.

In the end, what was she to make of him? He was wicked, but he could be worse. Despite the potential, Xelloss didn't mock people for what they couldn't help, or did anything that would cause lasting damage to a person's body (their purses, on the other hand ...). Sometimes, he returned lost property just because he could and saved lives because why not? All that just barely fit in the bag of Xelloss' stubbornly sticking to his narrow definition of polite.

His very narrow definition of polite. As she learned a few hours later, Xelloss had tricked the elves into ruining all the supplies in the next installment of Unauthorized Kitchen Adventures.

**· · · · · · ·**

A day went by in its new hectic pattern : tend to her family and put a sleep deprived Val to bed (she would never have imagined that only a maze and infinite knowledge could have kept him entertained night after night), check up on the next batch of vessels and endure Xelloss.

Sometimes this pattern meant she also had to dig Jillas and Memphis out of a mountain because their training caused an avalanche and off course Xelloss always invented new pranks. Fortunately, today his kitchen stunt was the only prank, and Jillas and Memphis managed to not wreck anything. As evening came, the foul mood she'd woken with was considerably better, which was just as well since Milgazia had off.

There was a network of caves behind the waterfall where dragons rarely came, as it involved getting wet with near freezing water. Filia worked around this by placing an enchanted item inside so she could teleport in even if it was out of visual range. Getting it in had made her very wet, but this was a one time situation.

In exchange for Filia's silence about Milgazia's suspected practice of the dark arts, Milgazia had not made big deal about her borrowing of the crystal ball. She might have accidentally demanded he tutor her too, simply by dropping insinuation it might help damage control when Xelloss went too far.

To think, seven years ago, she would have been revolted at the very idea she was blackmailing a dragon elder. Deep dark recesses of her mind ... oh, screw it. It was wide in the open that she enjoyed a little bit of power. Not that this was outside of her principles, off course. Learning dark magic might be very useful for defense and Zelas Phalanx was exactly her thing. This spell produced a variety of thin threads of light that had to be controlled by the mind, and Filia just happened to be a master of cat's cradle.

Milgazia never was much of an expressionist, but certain things he said had given her the idea he found her method of training with the spell to be odd. When he finally opened his mouth and hesitated, she expected to hear a reprimand. She steeled herself not to care.

"I heard you had a conflict with that gofer devil earlier this morning."

That was something she _should_ have been expecting. She started a more complex pattern of threads with the spell, giving herself an excuse not to look him in the eyes.

"Oh, that? Don't worry about it, it's just another Tuesday," she said quickly.

"Such casual interaction with a devil is a warning sign. Word goes round he has reduced you to his plaything and fooled you into forgetting what he is. You are giving him a chance to undermine your faith."

"I know what he is!" she said evenly, but she couldn't keep her eyebrow from twitching. "Do you think I chose this? I lost my dignity, sure, but I didn't lose my awareness of what he is. He made that crystal clear and wouldn't have it any other way."

"That may be what he wants you to feel like. If you are secure in your understanding yet still allow him close, it is his chance to undermine destabilize your faith."

"What do you want me to do? Be the perfect little priestess who rises above dark taunts? I can't afford such ideals! If I must play with a devil to keep my family safe, I will. Besides, those elves didn't see the finish. I totally got him to shut up."

"Why exactly is your family in danger then?"

Filia bit her lip and kept her ancient secret, choosing a lie in its stead. "Ever since the Dark Star incident, I am on the wanted list of the devils."

"What if he too is after you, but not to kill you? Spiritual corruption is an even greater danger, for you may not pass into heaven upon death if you fall."

Filia clenched her fist, and the all the threads of light dissipated. "Spiritual corruption? I suppose miss Lina never told you the details of her battle against the Hellmaster."

"We did not learn of those events until we spoke to dragon clans who still had a god to guide their clairvoyance. She herself kept the event from me. What are you referring to?"

For long seconds, Filia considered telling him all. Lina had never defeated Garv nor Fibrizo, yet the dragon clans believed so. They would know even less of Fibrizo's scheme. All those innocent villagers drawn into the sadistic setting only meant this : there was no righteous heaven guarded by the gods.

"Never mind, lord Milgazia. About Xelloss, he never tried corrupting me," she said. She knew a certain holy person with corruptive tendencies though. "And don't worry about my spiritual integrity. There is a difference between tolerating someone as a person, and tolerating their actions. Until he crosses the line of endangering my family, I'm tolerating _him_ but _not_ the actions that he might commit at other times."

"There's something wrong about how you exclude yourself from that line," Milgazia said. "I believe you're just giving yourself the illusion of control with those words. Do you still pray? The gods—"

"No!" She jabbed a finger at Milgazia. "I won't pray and I don't need your prayers either, nor your advice. I know exactly how weak I am. That _thing_ is always stronger. I can't make _it_ leave. _It_ entertains _it_ self with me, _it_ has use for me, and _it_ has a good reason to kill me if that use runs out. I can't afford to either stop entertaining or to stop being of use to _it_. As much as I hate that I've become a theater for our mortal enemy, I won't be a theater for the gods as well."

Milgazia took a deep breath and for a moment she could have sworn he was upset, but nothing changed in his expression save a slight drop in his eyebrows.

"If you are not in need of disillusionment, then I fail to understand your behavior around him. Doesn't he frighten you?" His tone had the subtle condescension of a person who just realized they were speaking to one of the faithless.

"Well ... no. He's not likely to start randomly torturing me or anyone else. If you'd try to punch him in the face, at most he'll pull a humiliating prank on you. Wait, he'll probably do that sooner or later anyway."

"Let me rephrase that. How do you spiritually deal with having a mass murderer over the floor all the time? You _were_ priestess, after all."

It was hard to tell whether that was accusatory or worried, but in either case it was a question about her faith. For Milgazia, one who had lost his god but not his faith, it had to be difficult to understand someone who had no hope for a greater reward. Knowing this, she couldn't hold her tongue anymore.

"I deal with it in the same way as I deal with knowing that my own clan committed genocide on pacifists, on their brothers and sisters, and then made a morbid artwork out of the penetrated skinned skulls, desecrating their temple in the process. Comparatively, knowing Xelloss won a lot of battles against dragon legions during a war doesn't hold as much impact."

"So what Lina said is true."

"Yes," she said softly. "You did not believe her?"

"Since the Devil Barrier was raised, we've been cut off from the rest of the world. For the past seven years we have tried reestablishing connections to the rest of the world, but it hasn't been easy. Lina's word is only second hand."

"Let me testify a first hand account, as shared by visions of the ancient dragon spirits themselves. It is true, my clan murdered them out of hunger for power and a terrible pride. I saw the corpses pierced on crosses, they killed everyone. The difference between warfare and genocide is that the latter keeps the violence going even when it's no longer of strategic use. Xelloss doesn't kill when he doesn't have to, my people however did so.

Lord Milgazia, if our stories been right about Xelloss I would have joined those corpses on that day. In the temple of the Ancients, Xelloss had taken me hostage to coerce my Elder, only for him to dismiss it. He could have said right away he didn't have the blood magic required to give into the demands, but no. It was imperative I'd know how worthless I was. No apology, no regret, not a single kind word to me. He didn't even look me in the eyes, just a barked command to be silent when I questioned his lies. He had far more to say about how his genocide was justified.

He couldn't make a mistake, by his own standards. He'd would kill innocents, and I was next. He'd come to clean up the witnesses, so when Xelloss offered, all he had to say was, _Do as you like_.

 _That_ was the man who dominated my life for six hundred years, more so than even my father. The man chosen to represent my god. I saw him and all of my religion for what it was that day and I turned my back on it. What little I could still believe in, whether it be heaven's grace or divine mercy had since been brought to ruin by the word of the Sage of Ragradia. Even if Xelloss cared to, there's no faith left for him to undermine."

Milgazia had turned his head down and for a long time, the drops of the waterfall were the only thing to be heard around her. Within, there was the beating of her heart. She was speaking against an Elder again, something that never became natural to her.

"How ... how do you know for certain that he wasn't just stoic out of force. I myself am not very expressive, it does not mean indifference. Especially in such a situation, where the world was at stake, he might have forced himself to be stoic." Doubt was creeping in his voice.

"That is the kind of thing I used to tell myself," Filia said, gentler now. "I mean no disrespect, but are we still talking about my associations with a certain piece of garbage, or has this become about you defending a title you happen to share, elder of the Kataart Mountains?"

"I can sympathize with your doubts, believe it or not. I've had them myself," he said with a sigh.

This caught her by surprise. "May I ask how?"

"Aqualord Ragradia died as the result of a long scheme that built around depriving him of the positive emotions that he needed to be strong, while building of the negative emotions for the devils to feed on. The very first stages were wars in the human kingdoms. If we had aided the weaker races and done the morally right thing, it would never have come so far. It is one some days I wonder why our god did not send us on our way? Had he not noticed, or not cared to notice?"

The river might have taken a break from gravity and flooded the cave, Filia would not have noticed for those seconds where realization dawned. It wasn't about his doubt or the careless of the gods, that was old news. It was that tiny little detail that Milgazia had implied as the most usual thing to be known. Ragradia hadn't foreseen that these events would lead to his death. In other words, gods couldn't foretell the future.

Her lips trembled and she embraced herself with her arms.

Dragon's blood will flow, the prophecy had said.

"They're chaos words," Lina had said.

Vrabazard's so called prophecy of destruction hadn't been a prophecy, but a plot. The gods must have simply learned from the past, then calculated and steered for an outcome to deal with the Dark Star incident. Oh, looks like the Lord of Nightmares likes Lina, let's throw her at the problem. No, no need to be detailed to the clan, Luna will sort out the misunderstandings. Part of this plot described the death of her clan. The completely _pointless_ death of her clan.

Filia knew all too well how precise the directions of Vrabazard could be. _Go that way, go here, go there._ It would have been so easy to just tell his own people to go away from the temple. Valgarv wouldn't have come across them, they would never have visited the desecrated ancient temple.

She had always believed that Vrabazard had phrased the prophecy as he did because he foresaw their behavior, their defiance to letting the prophecy play out, and had simply included it at a warning because no matter what he'd say her Elder would interpret it through the lens of his arrogance, or something. But if it _wasn't_ the fruit of testing out a variety of timelines for the best outcome, then it was pointless to to include that one line unless as temptation.

That one line had told her clan this : You'll die, do go ahead and be nervous now.

Vrabazard had not one but two dragon clans on his conscience. There was apathy and then there was cruelty.

"Filia Ul Copt, is something the matter?"

"It's nothing important. The gods are just ..." She couldn't finish the sentence, so she change course to something happier. "Anyway, don't worry about what I and Xelloss are up to. It'll probably be annoying, but it will be the same as the last seven years. Shall we resume training?"

"Yes," he said, and that was all for the evening.

**· · · · · · ·**

Luna visited her in the later hours of night, as usual, but they didn't really talk. This remained so for the next three days, much to Filia's regret. As harsh as Luna was, Filia did enjoy speaking to a more open variant of the woman. It felt less one sided.

On the morning of the fourth day, she woke too early as Val jumped on her bed.

"Mom, mom, wake up! Memphis is here, she says the elves are going to the human town to stock up! We're invited along!" He bounced up and down, flapping his wings. "Mom! Come on!"

Filia groaned as she sat up, rubbing her eyes. "Did Xelloss destroy all food deposits or something?"

"Yes!" Val chirped. Dead heavens, that was nothing to sound so happy about. Filia lost a little control of her weight and the bed collapsed on its feet with Val's next bounce.

The boy rolled forward, she pulled him in a hug.

"Mom, it's okay if I have to stay hidden here, but can you bring me some ice cream? And some candy?"

She ruffled his hair. "That's all you're excited about? Don't be silly, Xelloss is going along. Your job is to go along so he will have to stay close and muddle your astral form. Who knows where he might run off to otherwise! It would be downright evil to expose the poor villagers to him."

Truth be said, she _was_ weary of taking Val along with a group of elves, but the idea of letting him run off alone within the Claire Bible space when Xelloss wasn't around to bail him out if there was trouble was equally uncomfortable. There had to be something else than just infinite wisdom, because he just didn't come back bored and never complained either. It had taken so much complaining before he'd accepted he had to live in human form ...

It took a few hours of flight to reach the town and the company of twelve dragons. Normally the elves got their living from the forest, but with such a massive loss on the doorstep of winter, extreme measures were required.

Tss, extreme. The elves had such disdain for humans you'd think they'd been asked to spend the day with Xelloss! She suspected she was invited along as a diversion.

The town was more quiet than Filia had expected from one this size. According to Memphis, it had been abandoned once and was only slowly repopulating since the truce. It served as a middle point of the militarization process, some elves even had settled here.

The group split ways. The elves and their escort went to negotiate with trades, leaving Filia and her company to shop for themselves. Xelloss hadn't shown his face yet, so Filia, Elena, Palu, Molly and Val beelined for the shops.

She regretted bringing Elena, Palu and Molly along now, because the racism among humans seemed to have been intensified by the presence of the elves. If she leaned towards an interesting shop, she was told up front her company could not enter unless supervised, or enter at all. Gravos and Jillas had stayed behind exactly because they were the ones prone to break something, but the others deserved a lot more trust.

Just when she finally found a nice little ceramics store that allowed everyone in, Xelloss deemed it fit to join them. To Filia's horror, he had company.

Behind Xelloss, Milgazia stepped in. After him came Memphis, who shot Filia a desperate look and mouthed, "he kidnapped him".

"Ah, miss Filia, I see you've been overbuying already. Don't worry, I brought along some people to carry all those things," he said.

Elena and Filia exchanged a look and nodded. They held tighter onto their bags, but it was to no avail. Xelloss only needed to touch something to warp space around it. Before they could blink twice, their arms were empty and everything was stacked in Milgazia's arm.

The door fell shut only then and Filia noticed Val and Molly had gone missing.

"Palu, where did they go?"

The little vulpen pointed to the door. "Right when the big people came in. Val said that if that dragon was going to be here he wasn't. Molly followed him."

Filia frowned, Val hadn't told her anything to indicate why he'd be even more averse to goldens now.

"Oh my, how unfortunate," Xelloss said like it was _fortunate_. "So, miss Filia, are you here to check out the competition?"

"No, I'm just replacing my tea set," she snapped. Quickly, she grabbed the nice one she'd been looking at and went to the counter. "Miss Elena, please have a look outside to see where the kids are?"

"Off course."

Only then did Filia pay attention to the price leaned over and said, "If you ask nicely, I'll pay."

She narrowed her eyes. "You'll be telling me an elaborately new and humiliating definition of 'ask nicely' if I accept. Which I won't.

"Besides, who knows where your money comes from anyway?" Memphis said.

"Oh, I still have some leftovers of that wicked witch who I sold something to boost her powers."

"Really," Filia said flatly. "No thanks. It sounds like dirty money."

"And here I was trying to be nice! You are so ungrateful."

Filia had no chance to snap back something, because the door opened again. In came Val and Molly, the former launching himself at Xelloss's back. With inhuman agility, he climbed onto his shoulders. Once there, he clutched Xelloss's head, blocking his eyes.

"There's an ice cream shop around the corner!" Val squeaked.

Milgazia mumbled something behind the massive stack of groceries and knickknacks that blocked his face. Memphis could hear better than Filia and responded, "It's a cold candy that humans like to eat, uncle."

Both Val and Xelloss stared at the Milgazia-supported pile. Val narrowed his eyes.

"You don't know ice cream?" Molly asked.

"We will rectify this at once," Xelloss said, causing all three children to cheer. "Now I like the idea of cones for when walking, but I think we have enough time to sit down."

Memphis glanced at Filia, who shook her head. There was no arguing about sweets with this lot.

To be honest, Filia didn't oppose much anyway. Once it had felt like her mother's duty to reign in rabid sugar consumption, but she soon found for little dragons who grew too quickly it didn't matter. And ice cream _was_ one of the culinary masterpieces of humanity.

Milgazia mumbled something again, and Memphis said, "Uncle wants to know how cones are involved."

"Ice cream and cones always come together. _Especially_ Evil Wizard Ice cream Cone Person Thingy. Even if we're not walking."

"That is not my name!" Xelloss said with childish indignation. "For the nth time, your mother is not a good example on how to be a polite person!"

Val, Palu and Molly all stuck their tongue out and Filia was proud.

By now, the shop owner was getting a little worked up over all the racket, so Filia apologized and exploited Xelloss's inattention by saying he'd pay. Dirty money or not, it really was more about objecting to him than anything else. At least this way she knew he wasn't spending it on evil.

Xelloss pried Val off of his head, only to learn he was to pay, minus having been "asked nicely".

Meanwhile, Filia helped Memphis navigate Milgazia out the tiny door. He needed to go through his knees, but repeated offers to just take the stuff back were met with strained phrases about not displeasing the Dragon Slayer. Clearly, everything Filia had told him had gone out the other ear. That said, Xelloss had stacked everything jenga style so she had no idea how to take out one thing without scattering everything.

"That was foul play, miss Filia, using innocent little children to avoid being polite. Such pettiness takes dedication."

"Hear who is talking," Elena said under her breath, but Xelloss didn't reply as he'd already shifted away.

"This would be one of the things I use him for," Filia told Milgazia. He mumbled something in a disproving tone, and Filia wasn't all that interesting in knowing what.

When they arrived at the terrace, Xelloss was seated and just called in a waiter. They met some opposition when the vulpen wanted to enter the terrace, so Filia nudged Val, who ran ahead and took the seat next to the sewer priest.

Val had perfected the art of getting the attention of waiters despite Xelloss. Big cute eyes were his weapon, and implications of a furious mother who would kick a tantrum because "uncle forgot about allergies again". Using this method, he could undermine or at least stall whatever freaky thing Xelloss would have ordered.

As such, Val, Elena, Molly and Palu ended up exactly with the ice cream they wanted and Filia was given very acceptable pear shuttle with little bits of chocolate in it, the only objectionable quality being the tacky little clown on top.

It was almost suspiciously unoffensive. When the orders for Memphis and Milgazia arrived, she saw why he hadn't bothered with her today.

Cones dripping with very dark chocolate, stuck in yellow banana ice cream in the shape of dragons. Strawberry sauce was artistically applied to resemble a bloodbath.

"Xelloss, you never cease to amaze me with your ability to be intensely rude without using words," Filia said as her tail swished out, fighting the urge to shout what she really wanted to say, _you morbid cockroach, that's disgusting!_

"I thought it was an interesting way to reminiscence," he said as he happily jabbed his spoon in his own ice cream plate. He had the same as Milgazia and Memphis, minus the cones.

"It's ... " Memphis said miserably, then added a weak little laugh. Milgazia just stared ... and then actually glared at Xelloss. Filia gave him an equally futile glare, while Xelloss made a show of how dreamy the ice cream was.

"Such a startlingly poor sense of humor. Allow me to introduce you to some _genuine_ humor," Milgazia said. "Once, there was a ..."

Memphis noticeably flinched and an artificial smile appeared on her face. She started obsessively eating her ice cream, like she was panicking.

Five minutes of Milgazia's ongoing joke later, Filia understood why.

Oh, did she understand why.

The dragons called him the pleasant Milgazia, but Lina had told her something very different. Something so ridiculous that Filia had dismissed it as a lie.

True, Lina lied about some things, she exaggerated others, but every word about Milgazia's jokes were fact. Filia had thought it silly they deserved a rant about how horrifyingly dull they were, a joke so dull it was the silence of death itself. Now, she truly, magmatically understood the terror of absolute, perfect boredom.

His one liners were merely flat, but weave the chords of their empty tone in a long winded string and the very fabric of sanity was rend apart.

Filia found herself shaking in terror at such eldritch methods, spoon slowly cracking in her balled fist.

Xelloss's head lulled right into his ice cream and he was sobbing incoherently, one of his arms twitching. An astral being's mental state affected their strength and a lot of Xelloss's existence was about Fun and Interesting, it had to be even worse for him. She put a hand on his shoulder in sympathy. Nobody deserved to be subjected to this hell, not even this nuisance.

It took another five minutes before the joke was done. By then, several of the people on the terrace around them had collapsed to the ground, blank eyes stared into the sky. Those still sitting shook in their skin, and a few were having a seizure.

"... The door closed and the light went out. The dragon fell asleep. The story ended. The end."

"That was funny!" Val said with what appeared to be a genuine laugh.

Her son had been possessed, Filia could find no other explanation.

As she tried to wrap her mind around how anything like that could be funny to _her son_ , she pulled Xelloss out of his ice cream. To a whole other level of terror, both of his eyes were open and fixed on Milgazia. His arm was still twitching and bloodlust filled the air.

Like it had been when he'd fought Valgarv. On reflex, she grabbed him by his unstable arm and tried to pull him away, but he didn't move an inch. She tried surrounding him with the magic of teleportation, but with all this bloodlust and expanding dark magic she couldn't get the focus she needed.

He was going to kill Milgazia, but for the first time she was there. She could still stop it.

"~Earthlord Rangort, don't let him! Don't you have a plan?~" It was out before she caught herself, and off course nothing happened. "~For crying out loud, do something! If you won't protect your people, why do I even bother helping you?~"

There were no respectful thoughts behind it, only loathing and desperation. In some half formed idea, she considered defiance to Rangort's plan. Would it be, this was the prayer that got answered.

The magic in the earth below stirred, taking on a holy tint. Xelloss was flung off the chair and his concentration broke. Filia pulled him into teleportation and reappeared near an alley on the opposite end of the street. With all her force, she pulled Xelloss out of sight. Once far enough in the dark, she faced him.

"You filthy rat, were you really going to kill Milgazia over a bad joke?"

"My liege the Beast Monarch did not order me to not kill any golden dragons. All I am to do is remain hidden from devil eyes," he drawled. He didn't look at her, but at the direction Milgazia would be.

"Come on, you can't do this! Think of something positive!"

"That makes me sick in a different way."

" _Your_ positive, not humanity's positive. Think of that time I ruined a town—"

"Killing Milgazia would be my kind of positive."

"No!" She grabbed him by both shoulders and tried shaking him. He didn't budge much, only swaying a little on his feet. Like he couldn't be bother to emulate a realistic human form right now. Rangort's power was still around, though, not allowing him to fully fade.

"No, why?" he asked.

"Won't it really draw a lot of attention if you kill him?" she asked, hating that she couldn't hide the despair in his voice.

"If there were devils around outside of me, all these elves would have noticed them already. I don't care what the dragons notice."

"Xelloss, it's just a joke." Every fibre of her mind revolted at this understatement. "Just listen to it. Someone told a dull joke. You can't be seriously so upset over something so silly that you'd kill the speaker."

"Miss Filia, all of the world is a dream of the Lord of Nightmares. There are many things in this world we take for granted on Her dream logic, and there are many silly things with great gravitas. There's jokes, and there is the eldritch abomination that is Milgazia telling jokes. You just have to accept such weird things in a dream. It was not just a joke."

She laughed, it was more twisted than she'd ever imagine herself sounding. "Yes, it's all a bloody dream. Maybe next dream, I'll kill a god. Now imagine yourself killing the Lord of Nightmares."

"Don't say such things idly, miss Filia," he muttered.

"You're idly contemplating killing ..." Another person, but what would he care for that? She had to choose another word. "... killing a silly, unique part of the dream of the Lord of Nightmares. There, that's me accepting Milgazia as dream logic. You're the one who can't accept it, you want to eliminate it."

He tilted his head and gave that goofy smile, scratching the back of his head. But his eyes were still open, so he needed another little push.

"Your reality is that golden dragons are your weakness," she said as solemnly as she could, trying to sound dull like Milgazia.

That did it. His eyes closed and he was more annoyed than bloodthirsty now.

"They are absolutely not! The very idea that golden dragons like you or him could ever be my weakness when I've practically won the war against you on my own!"

"Oh really?" she said, putting up her best haughty voice. She pulled out a handkerchief, slapped it on his face and wiped the melting icecream remnants off. "The wounds of the battle are very evident."

"That's not injury, that's lost treasure. I never said I was hoarding."

"Oh you ... let's excuse Milgazia, shall we? I'll carry my own bags."

For once, he conceded.

Milgazia lived, and so did Filia. One way or another, and this was not good enough for her. The thought did not let her go anymore : what if she could just snip away dangerous emotions before they went into fruition? A Holy Rezast to work on astral beings might be handy after all.

**· · · · · · ·**

That night, she set up an invitation for Luna Inverse by piecing together an elvish reflection of her childhood. She had not learned to transform until she was a teenager, so it took a little to make herself appear small and her parents as elves. She normally hid these memories deeply and lived for her true family. However, she needed bait and a diversion, so Luna wouldn't derail the dream into an amusement park again.

If anything meant something for sure for Luna Inverse, it was family. Even if she had inadvertently driven away part of her family, something Filia couldn't understand.

Luna took long to appear, during which Filia played with how she imagined her family to look as elves. She'd seen her elder brothers transform, but not her mother or her sisters. She experimented with sculptures of clay, reflected these on the figments once she was satisfied. It was in her mother she placed most imagination, and by the time Luna did finally appear, she still was changing details.

Luna wandered through the wooden room, poked her toe in the fire and snorted. "Quaint, Filia. Not like the real thing at all, I bet."

Filia set her sculptures aside and stood up. "Miss Luna, I changed my mind."

With a loud plop, Luna dropped in a leather chair. Her trademark grin appeared. "Ooh, do tell me what changed."

"I discovered cruelty in the gods," she said.

Luna scratched her cheek. "Eh, I always just thought they were lazy."

Filia said nothing, but called into the dream the words of the prophecy, overlain on the image of her slaughtered clan. Amidst this, a figment of Milgazia wandered into view, speaking of the demise of Ragradia. She added in her own words.

"Yeah ... With lazy gods I mean I just know about Rags. Not sure though why Razzy would want to send his own followers to their death, but if I'd guess on astral logic, I'd say he got massively pissed off when he noticed Valgarv's involved and got retroactive irritation of the death of the ancients. But that's just me. We can't say anything for sure until we know whether or not gods can predict the future, sense the future or just guess the whole mess."

Filia hadn't considered imperfect future prediction, or limited one, but it didn't matter. She brought forth her memories of today. "I threatened Rangort with becoming a problem if he didn't help me. Only then did he make a move. It didn't matter Milgazia was in danger before."

"Yeah, I find it tough to believe Rangort wouldn't be watching your place, given their plan's unfolding there. What'd Milgazia do anyway? Xelloss is hard as hell to provoke."

"Milgazia's jokes are very bad."

"... I was prepared to say it sounds like a bad joke but you beat me. Seriously, though, how did he do it?"

"I told you. A bad joke."

"Never mind. You clearly don't want to tell me so it's something deliciously humiliating. I'll find out later." Luna waved her hand, and with that motion the landscape of corpses disappeared. They were falling again, each still on their chairs.

"Anyway, I don't care much for your reasons," Luna said. "Let's just get the job done. You can do with the information what you want."

"THOU SHALL TELL ME!" Luna Above hollered.

They looked up at the Siephied plush. Luna groaned and ripped a leathery piece off the chair to cover her face with.

"I don't mind, Luna. In essence, I agree with your reason to understand how astral beings stick together. It's for defense against astral beings. But ... it's not just the gods. It's also so I can finally have some leverage over Xelloss, and not pray to get help. What if the gods decide they don't care one day?"

Luna dropped the leather. "I'm aboard with that."

"DEFINITELY," Luna above avowed, and a choir of angels fanned out. Luna let out an agonized noise, not unlike a strangled cat.

"Your idea of Siephied is delightful as always," Luna said as she flipped over the chair, so she looked at the oncoming taiga.

When they were near the ground, Luna burned up the chairs and landed on her feet. Her casual clothes was gone, replaced by the Zephyrian Siephied Knight armor. Filia herself wore a simplistic version of her priestess outfit, minus hat. It made her feel a bit uncomfortable.

This time, there was something different about the golden fence of her soul. Where before the shapes were erratic, now double crosses with circles at their center had grown around the hole. Luna drummed on them with her fingers.

"What does this mean?"

"Subconscious barricade. I guess these shapes are a sort of anti-Life Law, or maybe you just use them due to trauma or whatever. Doesn't matter. _I_ can use it too."

Luna clapped her hands together once, causing a thunderous sound. Filia felt what she was to do, so she opened her soul gate a little. At the same time, she set the system of Holy Rezast in motion.

Luna grabbed one of the crosses from the fence, lacing her fingers over the center circle. "Filia?"

No going back now. Filia felt like she ought to tremble, but at the bottom of her soul little sentiments like that meant less. It was her anger and frustration that went far deeper. What Luna requested was a little piece of her soul, not to cut it off but to wield it as a weapon. Filia gave her permission, and so Luna drew out a cross of which the longest end became a sword.

"Oh, dramatic irony." Luna licked her lips. With expert hands, she turned the cross around once. It looked like testing weight, but in reality it tested resonance.

Almost nonchalant, Luna leaned leaned on the gate's frame with her other hand. She whistled without faltering, creating a rising tone that was carried far out.

The wind howled back to Luna, changing directions for her call. A fierce force rushed past Luna, straight into Filia's self. The sheer power cut her metaphorical breath, threatening to snuff her very life force if she was not careful. Yet this was but the smallest resonance, just the extended sight of a god.

Filia pulled herself together, and with that white threads shot from the fence, forming a glowing Life Law Circle in the hole. The power of Valwin condensed, taking a form Filia could comprehend more easily : out grew a many eyes dragon head, more arthropod than reptilian. A silver exoskeleton covered a stump skull with segmented mouth, and sharp long scales jutted from the head and neck. Like growing ice crystal, seeping scales covered the ground below it. Filia feared they'd piece Luna, but the woman easily stepped on them.

Balancing on these spikes, she stood at the root of the neck, waiting. Just as the flow was about the reverse, she grabbed the glowing circle and crooked it. The flow backward stopped, preventing Valwin's power and newly gained knowledge from reaching the Tower of Wind. It remained here, within this pinprick of the wind god.

Luna completed the first phase by setting a foot on the neck and ramming down the blade, thereby sealing the fragment within Filia's soul. The neck bled light that washed out as blood in the sea, shrill screaming filled their ears. Filia winced despite her efforts not to care.

Luna willed the wound to grow. Her power broke the fragment in small lines of logic for Filia to pull apart. The head became silent and stopped trashing, and Luna beckoned her to approach. So her surprise, she found she could easily walked on the razor sharp blades.

Carefully, Filia knelt down at the wound. Her hands grew claws as she reached for the astral body. Thread by thread, she pulled out the principles of the godly body. For now she did nothing to change it, only to learn. Filia had always imagined astral beings like vague energy fields, but the reality was full of complex ... concepts? Principles? Rules? The anatomy of the mind was poorly compared to physical form even in a dream landscape, but she didn't need to see. This was nothing she could truly feel or hear or grasp, but she could think it.

Break down an astral being and they are purely miasma constrained by soul and thought. She found the fence of Valwin's soul, intangible beyond her dreamscape yet within herself now. The piece of power still possessed soul, stretched thin and ready to pull back to its source. As she realized this, Luna also knew. With a few twists, Luna dug the blade in deeper and Filia contracted the hole in her soul further. Thread by thread, they cut Valwin's power using the walls of the soul and Luna's enforcement.

Fragments of memories crept into her mind, drawing her back to old times of dragon gods. Luna was already familiar with the sensation and so it felt less alien to Filia too. She dug her hands deeper into blasphemy, only to learn the gods cared not for concepts of sanctity and sin. As if it was news.

She finally smiled, even as far above her conscience readied a dose of guilt.


	10. Val's Friends

Val's life in Kataart had become a steady routine. An hour or so with his family, the next eight hours with Claire, then his family again with early sleep. A new kind of normal, already broken this morning. At breakfast, his mother gorged down food as if she was Lina Inverse. She even ignored her tea!

"Did I miss something?" Xelloss asked after the last bread disappeared.

She shook her head.

"Did I miss anything at _any other_ time?"

"That's a secret," she said.

Unaffected save for a twitchy eyebrow, Xelloss leaned back in his chair. "Yes and no questions do not work with my catch phrase. You have done something that required you to supplant lost energy. It's no secret that I missed something."

"I'll use your catchphrase as I please and it's none of your business!"

"Mom slept bad," Val said. "I think gods did something cause there is lots of weird energy all around the house at night."

"Val! Don't tell him!" she snapped. Startled, Val dropped his fork.

Dejected, he said, "It was creepy, mom. It made me feel happy like holy magic does, but you looked so sad this morning. I just thought Xelloss might know something."

"Xelloss is a devil, he is the last person I want help from. Not that I need help on this."

"It sounds like you have an interesting secret," Xelloss said, leaning with his elbows on the table. "Maybe I should pry it out."

"This is one secret that will be mine alone."

That sentence lingered in Val's mind. He was not the only secret of his mother?

He would have asked if not for the fact that he too had a secret for his mother. Xelloss had made him promise he would not tell anyone about Claire just yet, because they'd become afraid or paranoid. Maybe his mother's other secrets were like that. He was sure she would tell him soon. There was nothing wrong with secrets kept as long as you shared them in the future.

Val would have left the secrets behind him to finish his bacon and eggs in peace, but the theme went on in a different direction.

A roar down the hall announced the arrival of dragons. Without so much as knocking, a flock of elves and transformed dragons barged into their common room. Milgazia was at their head and Memphis at his side. This was Val's cue to leave.

He stuffed the rest of his food in his mouth and tapped Palu on the shoulder. "Wanna go play?"

"Sure!" Palu said. Val lifted Molly and they darted past the group, playing the part of insignificant kids.

They wouldn't be playing though. There was a crevice outside the temple where a wall had broken down. Val crawled in while Palu and Molly would stand guard closer to the door. Just in case fleeing was in order, Val could transform here and take off into the canyon without the enemy seeing him.

From here, a few roofs of the elven village stood out. A little further lay the scarred valley where Memphis often practiced with her Zenaffa. She was so lucky, being able to train with her monstrous power. Despite being less dangerous, Val could not do so.

Jillas had tried teaching everyone about traps and technology. It wasn't in Palu's hands and he'd moved on to more concrete construction craft, Val even less so. Only Molly held real promise, but that didn't mean Val couldn't fantasize sometimes. In late hours he'd pretended to be a genius architect, scribbling nonsensical calculations and silly machines. He'd dropped this pretense to try his hands at tending to the messenger doves, but that had become obsolete when the success of the factory allowed them to buy crystal balls.

"Gotta admit, that's a good hiding spot."

He startled. Floating above the crevice was Memphis, Zenaffa wings extended.

"Uhm ... yeah, but you spoiled it, it was Molly's turn to train her nose."

"Oh, did I?" She gave him a reprimanding look as she landed before the crevice, both hands on her hips. " _I_ think you're not hiding from the foxes but from us."

Her eyes narrowed, and Val might have actually been scared if he hadn't ever seen his mother, Cone Thingy and Lina Inverse when they were angry. Memphis paled in comparison.

"Why would I?" Val asked.

"You're no human, not with those eyes and those footprints. Why do you hide after one silly little devil attack? I wiped the floor with them and you probably could hold your ground."

He crossed his arms and looked away, resisting the urge to make her move out of the way. Zenaffa or not, he could break that stupid girl's arms even if metal coated it.

"Are your parents _here_?"

"Huh? Mom's still talking to those rude people that barged into our quarters."

"It's not _your_ temple," Memphis said as she inspected her fingernails. She wore gloves.

"What do you want?"

"Answers. More than a few elves saw the scene on the ice cream terrace, one of them knew the spell to look onto the astral plane. Xelloss's form was erratic and he got aggressive, then Filia drags him off. A god's energy was working around Milgazia, but your mother not, yet she was unaffected by Xelloss despite said Dragon Slayer being so murderous. And then there was you. With Xelloss's astral form a little out of the way you were kinda visible, except not. Why is there a spiky dragon shaped gap around you?"

Val gulped. "Ehm ... what is this about anyway?"

"Are you some sort of freaky fusion magic offspring of Xelloss and Filia?"

Val blinked twice before breaking out in choking laughter. It wasn't even a good joke, but it was just so ridiculous. Even Memphis couldn't help but laugh. Jillas found them before they'd gotten themselves together.

"What'so funny?" he asked.

"She thinks mom and Cone Thingy screwed and got me!"

"Haha! What have you been smoking, Memphy?" Jillas blurted out.

"N-nothing!" she said, offended even as she fought laughter. "It's just what they're saying. Uncle wants to ask but your mother and Xelloss have them caught in a counter answer conversation. If they're not your parents, why do you look so weird on the astral plane?"

Val shot a desperate look at Jillas, but the vulpen could only shrug.

"A devil curse!" Molly piped up. Val leaned out the crevice a little to see her and Palu run up to them.

"What do you mean?" Memphis asked.

"Cause miss Filia's on the devil wanted list, they ... ehm ..."

"Tried cursing her so she couldn't hide well anymore, but Val got in the way!" Palu finished it for her.

This would fall apart if his mother and cony thingy told another tale, but Val couldn't do anything about that.

"I never heard of that kind of curse," Memphis said. "Why didn't you say so before?"

"Eh, we didn't want to bother anyone," Palu said.

"I guess that makes sense. A dragon and a devil getting it on does sound too crazy," Memphis said. "And I don't think they like each other. Besides, I was there. I heard the joke uncle told, I believe they didn't do anything fishy in that alley. Nobody could, not after such a joke."

"What's wrong with Milgazia's jokes?" Val asked.

Four pairs of huge, disbelieving eyes settled on him.

"Don't ever tell a joke," Memphis said.

This conversation sure had taken a weird spin.

Xelloss phased in their middle right then, twitching and with one eye open. His right arm was acting odd.

"Val, ehm ... bring you to a safe place now. Oh hello miss Memphis. May-I-inquire-how-frequently-mister-Milgazia-t-ten ds-to-tell-his ... his ... "

Memphis had taken a few steps back and was starting to sweat. "Jokes? He told another one? Weird. He never does this when on business."

"Right. Miss Memphis, be so kind as to tell your tribesfolk to never encourage Milgazia to do such a thing," Xelloss said with a dangerous edge.

Without waiting for her reply, he grabbed Val and warped them both away. After a brief trip, he dropped Val before the entrance to Claire's dimension.

"Hey, Cone Thingy, are you okay? What happened just now? I don't get why you got angry yesterday either."

Xelloss gave Val the exact same look as Memphis and the vulpen had done earlier. Then he closed his eyes.

"I told Palu and Molly what to say just now, miss Memphis will spread it for us. This should cover that you have been seen, for now."

"Answer my question! Why do you and mom feel bad lately?"

"That's a secret. Run along now, miss Claire is waiting. And don't get into the comedy business."

Xelloss vanished with those cryptic words. Adults were weird.

When Val entered the sub dimension, he at once found Claire at his side. Sometimes the ghostly girly pretended to walk, but only during games that needed a hindrance for it to be fun. That she floated told Val she expected to have a conversation.

"What's on your mind?" Claire asked.

"They say mom and Cone Thingy are my parents. It's stupid, but I can't tell them any truth in reply. Who were my blood parents? Mom always said it was a miracle that I was born. Once I thought she didn't want to get into it cause adults are always weird about where babies come from. Cabbage patches, storks, carrots and other silly stuff," he said. "I actually believed the stork for a while cause doves bring little letters, so maybe bigger birds brought bigger things."

"They're not getting it on," Claire said. "I'd have noticed. Xelloss spends most of his free time making sure he remains undercover."

"Oh, I know they're not. Mom took me aside after miss Higgins started talking and explained me what sex was and if anyone ever said her and Xelloss did it, to not believe them since they had no evidence. Mom's always going on about not believing stuff unless you've got evidence. Truth's important and a right."

He grew out his wings then and folded them forward, running his fingers over the dark feathers. Val tried not caring for the truth of the past, because he also cared for the truth of his mother of here and now. He didn't want her to think he wanted them more than her. They were dead anyway. On the other hand, today he'd lied about his strange astral form, and he didn't know the truth behind that. Maybe that was one of the other things his mother hid.

Again he reminded himself that he hid Claire from his mother, and pushed away a strange sense of spite. He couldn't push away his curiosity anymore, though. A last, lingering doubt told him that perhaps there was some truth to the strange rumors, as irrational as he now knew the stork to be.

"Claire, I want to know about my real parents," he whispered.

"The ones you have now are not good enough?"

"No!" he held up his hands as if warding something away, flaring his wings. "No, but ... I'm just ... I don't know. I had other parents before, right? Can you make me remember?"

"I could reverse the flow of information. Access my Bible and ask nothing."

As they arrived at the spot where the Bible lay, he stretched his arms. With his child's size, he had to stand on his toes to grasp the sphere of light.

Being near the Claire Bible was pleasant, he could spend hours drawing on the old visions. Holy power had an appeal to dragons in the same way the presence of devils put them ill at ease, Val was no exception.

Claire faded from his side and the Claire Bible glowed a little brighter. After a moment she appeared again opposite of him.

"Close your eyes, and _ask yourself_."

That seemed too simple a key, but he did it anyway. Since he was at it, he decided to expand the question a little.

_Where was I born?_

An abrupt tide of knowing drowned his conscious thoughts out. In the darkness before him, a lady in white dress dress emerged, strange marks below her green bangs. A cape of white feathers cascaded from her shoulders. She pulled him into a gentle flow, deep into an abyss that felt familiar.

Drifting along with a flock of a kind darkness, he landed in a world so different from the human cities he grew up in. A world of howling wind, sharp rocks, sheltering nests and familiar feathers. There were no human shapes here at all, but there was more warmth than he saw with the golden and black dragons of these mountains.

Here lived the Ancient Dragons, first children of Siephied formed in honor of his closest sibling and himself. Their wings feathered like his own, though they lacked the harsher scales on the god's wings. They were creatures of great power tempered only by their gentle nature, born when Siephied's faith in creation still rang full of purpose. Before he lost faith in the cycle. Before he thought to give up his own existence to defeat Shabranigdu.

They drifted across the landscapes and refused to descend where anything lived out of fear of trampling it. The strongest took the shapes of humans and elves and beast folk and mingled with them to further peace. Every now and then there was a rotten apple, but benevolence governed their laws and rituals.

His parents were wise and calm, no more special than others, but all he could have hoped for. He had older siblings and younger siblings, uncles and aunts, cousins and grandparents, and he knew all their names. His own name was Valteira.

Strangely, he then remembered Filia Ul Copt in her small form and saw how imperfect she was. The parents he remembered were always patient and taught him well. He understood the cycle of nature so well he never even needed to question it, and he had never threatened a cat over a bird. Filia had not taught him so well, nor were peaceful solutions her every answer. His own parents, they'd loathe her aggression, her blackmail and her threats.

She was _trying_ , though.

"Val, that's not you. You can get even more angry than Filia Ul Copt. Don't be unfair, that's the past," Claire said from somewhere unseen. "It's true, isn't it? The you of now isn't that one of the past."

True, as much as he disliked admitting it. Valteira was so happy, it would be nice if he could be that same person. Or rather, have that life. Young Valteira knew no hate or distrust. He never would have been satisfied with the death of other dragons. As these memories mingled with the past, Val became uneasy and when he tried to remember what had brought him into his new life, he just didn't want to anymore. The miracle his mother spoke of so gently, as if it was a blessing, it felt dreadful now he dug into these depths of memory.

"Why not? Why don't I want to know?" he asked himself. Valteira _knew_ the golden dragons had killed his people.

And then it struck. Just a vague memory of the skies when the golden dragons attacked first, skimmed over as he focused on the dragons. That date matched visions Claire had shown him in her Bible of other events, events within the barrier. The positions of the planets matched.

Valteira had been born seven hundred years ago.

Where had he been all that time, before Filia came along?

At this his mind revolted. If words existed for what he was on the verge of unearthing, he didn't know them. Only one thing came close. When he had been younger and more fearful, he had nightmares that he never told anyone about.

Molly and Palu had nightmares about monstrous humans attacking them, but Val had nightmares where he was the monster attacking his family. The most vivid of these was the blurriest, vaguest of all, only strong in the sensation of it. He hurt his mother and enjoyed it because she was a golden dragon. Her blood was of those who'd killed his family. They had existed before he could speak, before his mother told him _why_ he had to fear golden dragons.

They matched with what he would find here, he felt it. With every ounce of willpower, he pushed away from it. The lady in white folded her arms across her chest and diminished along with the feeling, a sad expression on her face.

Still, he remembered everything for as far as he'd dug it up. Now his conscious wasn't overflowing with that dreadful feeling, he found snippets of other things that also had a strong feeling to latch onto. More pleasant ones.

There was man in orange coat, the only thing he felt worth remembering without agony. This man he cared for and trusted, something that had once meant everything only to be buried under that other sensation, that monster he might be.

The man was another father, different from his first. He left Val feelings both of fulfilled protection where there was a void, and great pain and rage ... not _against_ him, but steered by him against the world. Val wanted to remember him, only stopped by the knowledge he'd also have to confront that other ...

... maybe Claire could help him sieve out what he wanted.

In the real world, or at least a world that felt more real, there was another ethereal lady. Claire was a more welcome sight, there were no horrors behind her. Yet her face was like she saw the horrors behind Val.

The Claire Bible dimmed until it was as dusk in the biomechanic landscape, and only she was a source of light. Claire froze and her lips did not move when he heard in his mind, "No."

She vanished.

"Claire ... Claire, what's wrong?" he called out. "Did I scare you? Come back!"

He jumped up and looked around, but she was out of sight. He left the memories for what they were and starting seeking. Not that he believed he could find a ghost, but he didn't know anything else. He'd done something wrong.

"Can we talk about something else tomorrow?" he heard after a little while.

"I did scare you, didn't I?"

"I cannot feel fear," she said. "But some things are ... unpleasant."

"Oh ... okay. Wanna play hide and seek?"

"That I will," she said, and all sounded normal again. He didn't poke any further, because some secrets were best left in peace.

**· · · · · · ·**

The next day no one disturbed their breakfast, though Xelloss was there and all the tea was gone. Business was back to normal, save for one depressed Jillas. Memphis's father had forbidden her to practice with Jillas, and he couldn't use the smith hall anymore. The dragons confiscated his cannons.

After breakfast Xelloss would have warped him to the Claire Bible, but when Azonge called Filia aside, Xelloss joined that conversation and Val had to wait again.

He sat around the corner of the hall that led from their private quarters to the public area. In a way, he stood guard against the climbing numbers that passed by today. They did not even try to be inconspicuous with their whispers.

"Because of her association with a filthy devil, Filia's personality has become twisted."

"He just grabbed lord Milgazia to force him to be cargo animal!"

"Must be a reason he tolerates her behavior and it can't be good ... "

"Who knows what they're doing within their work hall? We can't see anything when they're fusing magic. Maybe they're fusing something else."

"I say, it's a disgrace we must tolerate such a person in our midst."

"They claim a devil cursed the boy, but if that was true, why didn't she ask for our help in lifting the curse?"

"I wonder what Earthlord Rangort will reveal once she has served her purpose?"

More than ever it was clear to Val that they were in the middle of a den of murderers. He'd been four when his mother told him golden dragons had killed all others like him. Genocide was Val's first big word.

He'd feared golden dragons since then, but hadn't imagined he could hate them more. What he'd seen of his own people, how peaceful they were ... his mother's idea of introducing Val to her family when he was older and stronger now looked stupid. Nobody who saw a peaceful tribe like the Ancient Dragons and decided to wipe them out could be good.

Still, both his mother and Xelloss existed without belonging. There had to be many amongst the dragons, born without purpose to their destructive kin yet needing to pretend to be one of them. It was a world of demonic masks. Knowing this stifled fantasies of killing them all, but the blood lust didn't just die.

When a golden glow emerged from their living room (a elven office in shambles, before Filia redecorated), Val abandoned his post and joined the rest of the family. They hadn't walked back, something bad had to have happened.

Within the room he met a surreal sight : Xelloss wrapped in blankets on the couch, twitching despite the lack of insults. Val's mother just sat down with two tea cups, she handed one to Xelloss. Jillas handed her a blanket too, she took it without thinking.

"Mister Gravos, I'm thinking about brewing some of my tribe's medicine, will you help me with the fire?" Elena called from the kitchen. Gravos lumbered off.

"Okaaaaay ... " Val said.

Palu and Molly had taken crayons and paper to the table, just to Xelloss's side of the couch. Val joined them, grabbing some paper for himself.

"What did the dragons want this time?" he asked.

"The same what miss Memphis told you. And then lord Milgazia decided to lighten up the mood ... " His mother shivered as she spoke.

"When they teleported back, Xelloss was like that," Jillas added. "Said' e needs to ground or something and e'll try anything. Even mortal methods of dealing with illness."

Val grinned. "Wizard Cone Thingy, you must be desperate if you lower yourself to the level of us feeble dragons."

"We have a truce," Xelloss muttered, pulling deeper into the wool. "I need sugar in my tea."

"As long as he stays on his side of the couch," Filia said as she grabbed the sugar bowl and turned it upside down over Xelloss's teacup. "The garbage is just here to feed on my negative emotions because he has no weakness to golden dragons and isn't affected by the ... the ... words. They are just words. Right?"

"You ruined my tea." Somehow, Xelloss looked better when he got annoyed with her.

Val leaned to Palu and whispered, "I don't get it."

Palu whispered back, "The elves figured out Cone Thingy is affected by Milgazia's jokes, so now they keep asking him to tell jokes whenever Xelloss is around. I heard them talk about while playing hide and seek with Molly earlier."

"Weird. I like his jokes," Val said, putting on his best imitation of Milgazia's voice. The dragon had this particular off-tone to his voice that was just right for his humor. "Especially that one about the cameldragon. The cameldragon flew down the mountain. The cameldragon arrived at the town. The cameldragon—"

"Nooooooo!" Gravos and Jillas screeched.

His mother scooted over to Xelloss's side of the couch, leaning on the devil as she pointed a shaking finger at Val. "As your mother I forbid you to repeat that!"

Dejected, Val put his crayon down. "Why not?"

"Because Milgazia is the Antifun," Xelloss said as he pushed Filia back to her side of the couch.

"Uh-huh," Val said sagely, deciding that this was one of the many weird Cone things, like his aversion to Justice Speeches. "Sorry about that. I won't do it again, so don't attack Milgazia, okay?"

Xelloss gave a sour hmmph noise and disappeared into the blankets.

"What if Milgazia's friends attack _us_?" Molly asked.

Silence fell over the room until Val's mother gave a haughty little laugh. "So what? Maybe our resident cockroach can finally learn to ward off people without overblown deathfests!"

"Cockroach? Overblown? Hmmph! Off course a egoistic dragon like you can't understand the way to be practical if it isn't her own."

"You have some nerve calling me egoistic after all you know about me!"

"Oh, forgive me, you're right. It must be so stressful for you, consistently being turned down on every application for a martyr job. I dare say, you haven't successfully held this position since ... since that time with ... miss Filia, isn't this the point where you make a pathetic effort to shut me up?"

"You just did it for me," she said, shoving his shoulder. He actually toppled over, and Filia worried.

It _couldn't_ be Milgazia's jokes. They were probably covering up for the fact that Xelloss had contracted some sort of disease. Val bet that they just didn't want the children to be worried. They might have Molly and Palu convinced, but Val knew better.

Now if only he could do something, because the last thing he wanted was his mother facing off against the golden dragons on her own.

**· · · · · · ·**

"Can I be stronger?" he asked Claire the next day. "You know, cause Wizard Cone Thingy can get sick. What if we have to fight soon?"

He didn't want to say fight the dragons. Claire seemed to like them, but she hadn't been outside so she couldn't understand. She only _saw_ things, she didn't feel anything and had a tough time with emotions she couldn't taste.

"Xelloss is not sick," she said. "At least not like you know it. He just had a devastating blow to his sense of self, which makes him very unstable. He still has all his powers, but it's like being stretched out."

"Isn't that the same as being sick?"

"Theoretically not. Would you like to use my bible? I'm sure through that I can explain the differences between injury, illness and mental issues. The latter is the only kind of ailment that can naturally happen to astral beings."

"No! I want to be stronger, Claire!" Val said. He crossed his arms and knew he sounded awfully like a petulant Xelloss, but he didn't care.

She hesitated long enough for Val to snap. "Why won't you? Is it about before? I knew it, you are scared!"

"I could help, but it'd mean bringing you close to some things you shouldn't know yet. Some truths are best if they remain a secret for a little while longer. Just like you are keeping me a secret for your mother," she said.

Irritated, he kicked at the nearest crystal, but it faded away in vacant blue before he hit it. "I know about that kind of secret, okay? I do get it. I _am_ one of those secrets! And to be honest, I'm also afraid of my deeper secret, it's ... I just ... I don't know. Mom's in them ... Mom always said one day when I'm much stronger, she'd try introducing me to her family, slowly breaking the secret. So I get it, really. I won't dig into stuff I can't know yet, but I need to have a little, Claire!"

Her fingers dug into her arm, the cloth of her white sleeve crunching soundlessly. She was so frail in this form, he realize. It made sense that she was so careful, just like he and his whole family always had to be careful. That was exactly the problem though, he couldn't change anything about all this. He felt he had more power, he needed it.

"Claire?"

"I'm thinking about it."

"You know, I don't really need to know much. Just a little bit of that tall man in the orange raincoat. He had great power, yet looked just like a human and fought that way. That's what I want to be able to do. If I can fight like my big dragon self in a small form, I won't give away my secret when I try to help my family."

Claire had bare little expressions, but now something like sadness drew over her.

"You want to make sure you all live as long as possible?"

"That's what I've been saying!" he yelled, flaring out small wings.

She spoke more to herself than to Val when she said, "Right. Everyone deserves to live as long as possible. I cannot help them, but I can help this one here, so I should."

Val smiled brightly. "Thank you!"

"One thing before all, Val. As an Ancient Dragon, you have the strength of a thousand golden dragons," Claire said softly, but with a deeper echo than usual. "If you ever fire one laserbreath unrestrained by spell or willpower, you will destroy everything in a five mile radius of impact. Even before the genocide, there were instances of less pacifist Ancient Dragons, provoked in inhabited areas, that led to rumors of their violence. They were so pacifist they never trained enough to get a grip over their destructive potential."

That stunned him for a little bit. He had known he was strong ever since he accidentally turned a small forest into a crater simply by overcharging a defensive barrier spell. However, he'd never thought about what that meant about his power expressed through full sized dragon form.

Though, that was untrained dragons. He wasn't that. How it fit together he didn't know, but that man in the orange coat had taught him. He just knew.

Worry turned to joy when a sense crept up that he could use all that safely. Somehow. On top of that, if he could wield so much power they didn't even need Xelloss. He was sure Filia would be happier if Evil Wizard Thingy came by a little less. His smile turned into a grin, much to Claire's surprise.

"Claire, show me. I'm going to master all that power and then I'll be the family's protector. All evil cones can get lost unless they bring ice cream!"

There was a mild smile on her pale face, a tilted head. He couldn't tell what it meant when done by Claire, only that it was unusual to see her so nuanced. Maybe she was sad, maybe she calculated.

"Alright. Focus, I'll pull out a little. If you transform, don't panic."

When she faded entirely, Val knew what to do. He reached for the Bible and let its power pour into his mind. Before he could even wonder whether he should ask for anything, something snapped and his body distorted.

It was much like the first time he transformed into a human and had to hold onto that form despite how wrong it felt. The body sense of a dragon was adjusted for their dragon form, training this sense to operate with the wholly different human for was the first and most difficult task. It had become easier over time, but never did it become entirely right. This time, he let go of his human form to slip into something he hadn't realized he'd been missing.

As long as the light of transformation glowed he did not see or feel. He hoped he didn't accidentally knock down any walls or worse, damage Claire's Bible with all this magic. The sheer force of it was exactly as Claire had promised.

The world solidified before his eyes again, for as much as it could within this strange dimension.

To his surprise, he still had hands. No feathers either, nor a long neck. He stood up with lank ease, his legs standing him much taller than Claire's childlike form. The atmosphere shifted from biomechanic to crystallize and he saw his reflection just beyond the light of the Bible.

Staring back was an adult man with unruly, long hair.

A wide, silly grin spread on his face. _He had grown up_. It was the kind of thing many little human kids wanted, to grow up quickly so they could look the adults in the face and not be shoved aside anymore as a nuisance. Better yet, he had the build of a warrior. If he could use fight as well in this form as he had the idea he could, those dragons wouldn't be a problem.

He jumped up once, then another time, then sprouted his wings. Far from the plucks of raven stubble he had before, these wings stretched eight meters wide at best, and he could adjust their size. The sudden disbalance had him fall forward, but with quick reflexes his arms were beneath him.

Now focused on his arms, he turned them into dragon form easily, then back into human form. All the while he laughed, perhaps a little manic.

"Claire, this is so awesome!" he said as he crossed his legs to sit. Curling his wings forward and morphing his arms some more, he tested out just how simple this was. He didn't even need to mutter a spell. "What did you do?"

"Not all memories are images of past events. There is also muscle memory, language memory and sensory memory, and even genetic memory."

"Oh, you mean instinct," Val said.

"Some of those, but not all are instinct. What I helped you pull up here is proprioception. However, your equilibrioception has no improvement or you would not have fallen. Kinesthetically you seem to function fine, but let me know if anything feels off."

Claire sometimes used fancy words on the idea he'd ask if he didn't understand. It certainly was the case now, but he wasn't in the mood. He wanted to try out this new form, not get language lessons. There was this idea that he could chuck energy with his hands, he itched to try that.

"Claire, anything I can shoot here?"

"I have a surplus of tripolar walls, but not of biblical access points. Take a guess what you may shoot."

"I'll be careful!" With that, he willed energy in his black palm. With one swoop, he hurled it at the mirror to his left. On impact it broke into a shower of tiny crystals. Val scooped them up and found his hide so thick even the sharpest edges did not cut him.

Claire floated over his claws, peering down curiously. "You're using no spells?"

"Huh? That's not normal for Ancient Dragons?"

"Oh ... it's unusual. Then again, you are an unusually talented dragon."

"I guess so. What else can I do?" he said as he threw up the splinters. They tickled as they rained down on him.

"I've never been in a form such as yours, so I cannot answer. My apologies."

"It's okay."

After testing the density of his wings a bit, he curled into a ball and rolled over the floor. As he came to a slope his speed increased, but he didn't worry. There was no getting lost here with Claire as his guide.

Once he bounced against a wall, he uncurled and lay there laughing. It felt so natural to be like this, he didn't want to go back to the restrained child form. Never.

"How old is this form?"

"Between 900 and 1100 I estimate," Claire said.

This was another thing to give Val pause.

What if this was his actual age? What would have happened to reduce him to a child who could not remember?

He had to remind himself that a lot of secrets weren't as scary as they looked from the outside. Claire wasn't scary, he himself wasn't scary. There probably was a reason Filia kept a secret that could explain it.

Off course, whenever secrets were kept without a date of revelation decided on, it meant those the secret kept from were dangerous or in danger. The answer might involve that _he_ was dangerous. No, there had to be some other explanation. Maybe she's needed to steal his petrified egg and she was ashamed of having broken the law, or maybe he'd been brainwashed all that time.

No matter what, he couldn't pretend anymore that he wasn't burning with curiosity.

"If I really am that old, why can I know so little?"

Claire took on a matching age and she laid a spectral hand over his claws. There was a pleasant sensation of holy magic. "You're happier this way. With your power back, you wouldn't need to go any further into the past."

"How do you know? Is there something you're not telling me?"

"I ... I say this because I know my own secret and regret it. I would have been happier if I'd been just some nameless thought existing in this space, with no memory of what I have lost and all that I have failed. Everything I am is held together only by the thread of self imposed duty, yet I am often useless and with too much time to spend recalling what I cannot be anymore, yet the need to be exactly that. You are happy because you now have no nagging feeling of incomplete existence, and before you never wondered about what you might miss."

That was it, then. Her words all but confirmed he was missing something.

There was consolation too, however. It didn't sound like something he needed, at least not in the way she did. He was curious, but now he could take this older form he did feel complete. Maybe that was enough. Maybe he'd hate the secret.

It had to be worse for her, that she spoke so much about herself when asked this. He had seen her as a fun playmate, but if he was no real child it was the place to wonder what she was. It didn't sound like she was happy here. Maybe in some twisted way, Xelloss had brought him here for her to be happier.

Claire feigned sitting opposite of him, ethereal and without an apparent worry, waiting for him if he needed something else. Val decided to turn the table.

"How long have you been here anyway?" he asked her.

"1020 years."

"That must have been lonely."

"I don't understand loneliness," Claire said.

"Huh? But it sounded like you were."

"Loneliness is a psychological termination system that belongs to organic creatures with a social instinct. I am an astral creature's ghost, descendant of Siephied alone. Astral creatures do not posses any instinct that is designed to further procreation and eject the unwanted from the gene pool."

He didn't understand half of that. More importantly, this wasn't going like he expected. Good friends listen and support one another, and they don't make the other feel pain or ignore them, so Filia and Elena had told him. He was trying to be that, but with Claire being so ... so ... alien.

"So ... you don't have a social instinct? What does that mean? You're not my friend?" he asked anxiously.

"Yes, I am. I would dislike to see you hurt and I think I can trust you. But I don't _need_ it like you need company, and it doesn't come naturally."

"That's sad."

"Off course not. It doesn't hurt me to _lack_ it. I'm better off than you in that regard, at least. It only hurts that I lack what I should be."

"Oh ... but can you still be bored? That's an awful lot of time and Xelloss said you didn't get a lot of visits till he started coming."

"Time doesn't last long or short for me. For you it is cause you don't have a lot of memories. For me it is because I have many, but there are no diversions. My chronoception is not marred by subjectivity, nor do I have a brain that needs constant stimulation to stay healthy."

"Chronoception ..."

There was something like a sigh. "Talking to the beast priest about these things was easier. I don't understand how we went from talking about your power issues to my mental faculties."

Val smiled triumphantly, pointing. His long arm not taken into account, his claw poked through her face. "Oh, you can get annoyed!"

Claire humphed as she leaned away. "Were you starting to think of me as an underdeveloped construct or something?"

"Well, yeah. Almost. Just for a little bit, when you were all weird about friendship and loneliness. Hey, if all you do is talk back to me and be curious, you're missing out on life."

"I can't miss what I don't need."

"Do you never get curious at it? Maybe you'd like all those organic things if you tried."

"And then I might end up like the beast priest and his lord. It's not an appealing subject, given their current predicament."

"Predica ... I don't get it," he said. He bit his lip and noticed he had fangs. A trickle of blood ran down his chin. "Can we start at the beginning? If I want to get who you are and help you too, I need to know more. Or is it a secret?"

"I'm a free charge service, I don't need your help. Thank you for the offer, however."

He rocked on his crossed legs, back and forth. She tilted her head before mimicking the movement.

"That's not right," Val said. "You're a person and you say we're friends. Can't you just tell me stuff about you? How do you know Xelloss and what's that about being descendant of Siephied? You're not a god, are you?"

"No, not like this. Yet I may hope you are not a hater of gods, because once I was. Or I have part of it."

Val scratched his wings, something didn't feel quite right about the answer he was going to give. He said it anyway, "Mom says the gods don't pay attention to much but they're not the enemy either. So I guess I don't hate gods."

No, that felt like a lie. Testing, he added, "But you care, so you're okay." That at least was true. "So who were you anyway?"

She gave him the most distinct face she'd made yet. The kind of face his mother made when a particularly dense customer turned away for a moment, mixing disbelief and frustration.

"Val. Guess. Who died here?"

"Eh ... Aqualord Ragradia?" It was so obvious now, but somehow any knowledge of the god had been buried ... like it was pulled under the ground by the missing memories. For an instance, he knew Ragradia was a name important to his past, only for that knowing to be alien a moment later.

"Yes. A prior variant, the one that existed between me and Ragradia, she saved Xelloss's life despite knowing what he was. Just a little before he had done her a favor too, carrying her to safety when he did not have to, but Xelloss only counts from the favor paid to him forward, so it did not matter. You could say he's been trying to repay it by giving me a more sold form of existence after a battle left me broken, lest I fade away. I guess that is one way you've helped me too."

"How so?"

She smiled brilliantly. "By needing me. _I should have worked to let everyone live as long and as happily as possible_. Those were the final thoughts of Aqualord Ragradia and those I must embody."

"Oh. Neat, then you really aren't like the other gods!"

That was a little like how his mother lived, now he thought about it.

**· · · · · · ·**

Two days later, after spending most of his times play practicing his newfound power, he returned home at the side of an unusually silent Xelloss. The devil disappeared immediately, leaving Val to wonder why Gravos was in the passageway outside their quarters, preparing the saddle. It was too large to be unfolded inside their rooms, but out here Filia could put it on and just teleport into the open (she said it was possible with so much holiness around, even if she couldn't see). Filia had gone over with the family what to do in case of sudden departure.

"Eh ... we're just taking precautions in case we need to leave early," Gravos said when he spotted the curious Val.

"I noticed. They've made enough fusion magic vessels?" Val asked, as vain as he knew that hope to be.

Gravos shook his head. "I wouldn't know anything about divine or arcane say so. Just that lady Filia said we had to pack. If you ask me it's one of those times again. Y'know. When the villages get hostile."

Val nodded sadly.

Gravos was their saddle expert, so Val went inside to see whether he could help anyone else. To be honest, he was glad to be leaving Kataart, but also doubtful about the way they'd do so. Claire had said she was going to come out of the sub dimension eventually and she'd like to join him, but it would need a lot of tools. Soul jars, for example, and weak dimensional spaces and magical circles and a particular type of sorcery. If they were going to leave without any of those available, Claire would have to stay behind. Soul jars sounded like Filia's expertise, though. He considered telling her about Claire, surely she'd help out.

Filia was in the kitchen with Elena, carefully wrapping the tableware in cotton cloth.

"Hey mom, do you know about soul jars?" he asked. "Can you make one?"

"Val, not now. We're busy, okay?" she muttered withouteven looking up.

"But mom, it's important!"

Elena shook her head. "Val, this really isn't a good time. Your mother's in an, ehm, insulted mood."

"What did Xelloss do this time?" Val asked.

The spoon Filia had in her hands snapped as her fist clenched.

"Not Xelloss," she hissed. "Those idiots have crystal balls but they sure don't know how to use them properly! Amateurs! They haven't wielded them for a millennium! How can they think they can use them as surveillance with a feeble Vision spell? That takes practice! They shouldn't be interpreting every vague little wisp of vision in the most dramatic way possible!"

"They shouldn't be spying in the first place," Elena said with a sigh. She laid a hand on Filia's fist, who released the broken tableware.

"That too!"

When Filia was in rage mode, talking to her was difficult. Val leaned out the kitchen door and called, "Palu, do you know anything about crystal balls and mom being upset?"

"After the alley thing some dragons wanted to know for sure whether they were doing it and they saw them on the couch. They decided that meant yes."

Val rolled his eyes and laughed. "That's stupid."

"That they are. As if I'd let myself be seduced by Xelloss! As if he'd want to! But this is all just for precautions. Earthlord Rangort is in charge of this, and I'm sure he doesn't want anything to happen to us. Not if he wants a decent product in the end," Filia said. There was a quiver in her voice. Every time they left a place she'd grown to feel home at, she sounded like that.

He hopped onto the table, careful not to step on anything, and pulled Filia and Elena in a hug. He'd tell her about Claire tomorrow, when she felt better.

**· · · · · · ·**

After Val helped with packing, he went to bed for a deep sleep with hazy dreams. When he woke, there was only the vague memory of the lady in the bright feather cloak. He turned over in bed, that's when he saw it.

A small feather coiled through the air just outside his bed. Curiously he slipped out from under the sheets, but as he came closer, the feather drifted away. Knowing the game that was played, he followed it.

The feather dissolved at the door, but in the dark hallway, he saw another.

As per usual, he had a room alone, Filia in the room to his left. The vulpen and Gravos were in rooms to the right, all the way to at the end of the hall. None could reach the other rooms without passing Filia's, whose door was open so she heard everything. As every night, a thick holy cloud flowed into her room and passed out like a wind that went both ways.

The feather trail led him to the smaller rooms. All these rooms were meant to be closed with lock spells and heavy doors, which made it all the more worrisome that the door of the vulpen children was open. Inside, the beds were empty.

Once he might have screamed, but now a whole different attitude kicked in. There was no room for childish antics, screaming could draw attention of the enemy.

Val knocked on the nearest door, but Gravos didn't open. He repeated the same with the door of Jillas and Elena, to similar results. The doors were locked, at least, so they probably were safe. He hoped, at least.

When he ran down the hall to his mother's door, he pushed in. She stirred when he came nearest, but nothing more.

"Mom, wake up! Val and Palu are missing!" Val whispered as she shook her.

She only groaned and turned to her other side.

A shower of white feathers surrounded Val, one brushed past his ear.

" _A sleep spell_ ," a fleeting voice whispered. He had not so much heard it as remembered it.

The feather trail led him outside, down a canyon near the temple. Careful not to be seen by guards, he crept through the rock formations to reached it. It helped that all guards were not particularly alert, sitting around only waiting for their devil senses to go off. Idiots.

The trail led him far away, well out of earshot. There was a sound muffling spell as he passed into the canyon. Who ever was here probably wasn't on official orders. Though he couldn't place from where, the scenario reminded him of lynching.

He peeked over a ridge, right when the feathers vanished.

A group of elves and immature dragons had gathered here, none of the latter high level enough to transform into human shape. In their midst was a circle with six points, where Molly lay unconscious. Palu was discarded near a rock wall, moving no more than his little sister.

The elves were laughing and talking, some slouched against the rocks. One sat with her legs crossed on a tall rock, reading from a book and giving directions. The dragons were somewhat cramped. They would not be able to fight well in such an enclosed space. They were nervous too, which would make them imprecise. If they were doing this in secret, whatever it was, they furthermore would try to not be found out. And given their age, he should be able to handle them easily.

Where he'd learned to see such things remained forgotten, but he didn't care. He knew what he needed to. This boost to his confidence drove him out of his hiding spot. Jumping all the way down, he landed like a cat.

Some turned lazily, others jumped in their skin.

"Huh? You awake?" the nearest elf asked.

"You screwed up the sleep spell!" one of the dragons told a nearby elf.

"What did you do to Palu and Molly?" Val asked evenly.

"Oh, we were just testing what these things are made of. What with you being the spawn of blasphemy, who knows? There probably was a reason lord Azonge attacked her instinctively."

"Xelloss is not my father and they are nothing evil," Val said. There was a drawl to his voice, he knew people never listened in these situations. They thought they were stronger than him, which was oddly satisfying.

"What would _you_ know?" one of the dragons said. "As if they'd tell you if you were such an abomination, a sin against nature."

Val clenched his fists, defiantly looking up. One half of him wanted to argue, to defend his mother's honor. A stronger half wanted them to cross the line, because wouldn't it be fun if he could show them just how much of a dove they were before the cat?

He owed that cat an apology.

The elf sauntered closer, leaning over Val.

"I bet you're really defective. You'd fall apart if not for devil magic," the elf sneered, poking him in the head. The tickle of a spell about to be unleashed set off his instincts.

Val didn't think. He just transformed, not into a dragon but into an adult human. He grabbed the elf's arm and closed his fist, growing it out into a claw. With all the strength of an Ancient Dragon concentrated on that small area, he didn't so much break the arm as turn it to bloody mush.

He stopped only for a cold moment to see everyone panic. Ha, they acted like they hadn't ever seen any blood. Probably had been raised too well. Too weak.

So had he, incidentally, but still he was like this. It was okay too. If before had felt right, this was even better. He wanted to suck up their fear, but couldn't.

Flicking the gore off his claw and burying his foot in the stomach of his victim, he brought him to the brink of death before losing interest. It was too easy, he wanted a better fight. There was no playing if the prey didn't move.

The others finally tore from their frozen state, some lunging at him, others fleeing. The elves attacked with pathetic blades, the dragons with their laserbreath. Val dodged them with ease. When he grew his wings and decimated a dragon's head with but one strike of his claws, they already lost what little focus they had. Amateurs indeed.

Fear and rage made poor battle companions, especially for these teens. Val shot by them, ripping wings and breaking legs till all collapsed. They hadn't even landed before he's tossed a few claws full of energy after them, leaving them burned and in pain.

"Magic without spells! He _is_ a hybrid devil!" the elf with the book whispered from farther away, eyes pathetically wide. She's run off, but had not come far with the steep rocks. Stupid little wench. He shot a spell after her, bringing her down with two tries.

He forgot his rage briefly when he felt something soft under his feet. Molly still lay there, he'd stepped on her tail. Kneeling, he carefully scooped her up. She was still alright, simply under the effects of a sleep spell. Small singes on her fur indicated they'd tried a few less savory things, however.

In this size, she was so tiny and vulnerable. There'd been another time he had seen fox folk like this, a burning village. Most everyone was dead, save that one, and that one. He picked the one that had lost his eye, it'd make a nice theme since the other one also missed an eye ...

Who had he been?

"Val? Is that you?"

Palu's voice pulled Val back to the here and now. There was no burning village, but there were burning elves and dragons. If not for the muffling spell, their screams would be all over the mountain. There was also a young beige fox who had never looked at Val with such fearsome eyes.

"I don't know if it is me," he whispered. He knew this was the kind of situation where he had to say yes, and assure the scared one it was alright, but he honestly didn't know. The clash between not wanting his family to be so afraid and the bloodlust left him in a deadlock. It took Molly stirring for him to be pulled in one direction.

"Hey, don't be afraid." He hunched down before Palu and turned one of his arms back to human form. Carefully he helped him stand. Palu seemed alright, so he put Molly in his arms. She opened her eyes at last, giving him a confused look?

"Val?"

He grinned. "How do you like my new trick?"

"You look big," she said, followed by a yawn. "I don't feel okay."

"That's because bad elves and dragons cursed you, but you're safe now. I'm the family guardian. Let's go back and fire Xelloss!"

"Can we?" she asked.

Palu was still staring, pressed against the walls. When his arms closed further around Molly, Val thought it was because of him. But Palu stared beyond him, above his wings.

Wind pushed against Val's back and a heavy dragon voice thundered, "What in Siephied's holy name are you?"

Oops. If the sleep spell was wearing off, the sound spell would be missing too. The guards at the ruins above would have heard the cries now.

In other words, he wasn't done yet.

"Palu, go home," he said again. "Molly, don't worry. Mom will heal you."

Finally, Palu nodded. Holding Molly close, he raced towards the nearest slope.

Val turned his arm draconic again, but this time he was caught unaware. Before he knew it, a Zenaffa armor was forced over him by an elf, cutting him off from the astral plane. Energy lobbing was out of the question now, but he still had all his internal magic and strength.

With a sharp turn he made a grab for the elf, but this one wore a Zenaffa armor that allowed him to shoot out of range. Some sort of speed enhancing spell was at work too.

He tried tearing the armor, but it simply reformed itself like liquid metal. Who ever commanded it was good at what they did. Ranged combat not being an option, he needed a smaller space to fight. The dragon guards gathering above were preparing for laserbreath, which could affect targets regardless of the astral plane.

Val dodged into the narrow canyons of the mountain, forcing the dragons who could not transform to stay behind, but he was left with those who could. He stopped to face them, only to see them drop.

Xelloss stood there as sudden as lightning, and around him everyone was already dead. It had taken only a flick of his fingers.

"In a hurry, Val?"

"Were were you?" Val hissed. "They kidnapped Palu and Molly!"

"Out into the mountains, off course. Killing astral witnesses," he said simply, one eye open. "You see, _I_ understand the need for secrecy, unlike you. What did I tell you, Val?"

Val looked down. "If mine spills, you have to kill people or they'll kill our family. But they—"

"Were a bunch of stupid teenagers that I could have easily undermined. You did something really overblown. Not that I have high expectations of dragons and their self control."

"Shut up and help out! There's more guards coming, can't you hear them?"

"Off course. But see, you have quite the astral resonance, now that you're doing whatever you're doing. I'm afraid I'll be quite busy in a minute with cleaning up devil witnesses. Seeing as I cannot warp you away with this armor on, we have quite a problem on our hands. Try not to die, will you?"

"If it was up to me, you'll be trying in vain!" called a heavy voice from above. A black dragon shot over, transformed in mid flight and landed between Xelloss and Val. Azonge.

Whatever composure he meant to radiate broke when he realized he was surrounded by the dead. His jaws fell open, and Val saw him through two minds of his own. The warrior saw a pathetic weakling and called forth more bloodlust, but the child saw a dragon who had lost his family to a monster. Azonge right now wasn't the pompous fool, but one who could break or get revenge.

When he looked to Val at last, he said a simple, pained, "You are ..."

He didn't finish, but his face carried all the hatred he could have put in whatever swearword was on his tongue. He became the vengeful warrior, and so Val became the warrior as well.

Xelloss didn't just snap his finger this time. "My my, an interesting opponent at last. Val, why don't you keep these nice dragons occupied? Let's see how you fare against a high ranking dragon. We'll be kinslayers together."


	11. Filia's Spindle

_If killing me will appease you, quick, kill me._

At the heart of the demon's sea forever lay a wound in the world. He was there, forcing her hand to tear it open further. All would come to an end under Dark Star.

Devils from this world or another, her dragon senses cried out in warning. Dark Star Dugradigdu needed only to look and every holy fiber in her body screamed like Hell had grown beyond Megiddo.

In these nightmares Filia always was helpless and unable to change anything, but tonight, for the first time she realized it was not truth. She was in her bed, caught in memories she couldn't escape without waking. Desperately she told herself this, but nothing she felt became any less real.

Valgarv threw her away, but continued to regard her with cold eyes. She remembered earlier nightmares where Lina never arrived and they were swallowed together, but he'd say one thing first.

"Your bear this blame."

A bamboo stick sailed in from the left and knocked him off balance. Staggering, he tripped over his own feet and fell back. It was almost comical. Even Dark Star looked more like a caricature as he made wide eyes at the silly scene.

Now Luna was at her side, tapping another stick in her hands like a school teacher reprimanding an unruly child.

"You didn't do it. Not the squishing of the Ancients, not Dark Star's invitation to prom," Luna said, and down came the stick on Filia's head. "Cut it out."

The formerly solemn, dreadful scenery changed to a happily distorted restaurant, where Filia and Luna waitered on a table with Lina and Gourry. Those two gorged themselves, as per usual, but in between bites Lina spat out, "Dammit, Filia, duty's fine but I hate the martyr act."

"Hear hear, something I agree about with this little monster," Luna said, knocking the table. "Seriously, Filia. What has happened to today that I find you like this?"

"I don't know," Filia said. There probably was a prompt, but she was too distracting by the jarring contrast between the mood of her nightmare and the jolly scenery. Her mother, her cousins, uncles and aunts, her grandfather and a horde of family friends occupied the restaurant, all in the traditional robes of the second holy order and off course human form. They looked happy, but in the middle of the restaurant was a row of caskets. Flowers were arranged around them and every so now and then one of the group came up and paid respects. In the caskets lay her elder, her father, and herself.

Luna groaned. Still balancing the service plate on one hand, she went over and kicked the caskets, and for good measure set them on fire.

"That's better," Luna said. "I was planning that tonight we try commanding the little piece of Valwin we stored in your soul, then catch up complaining about idiots assuming we bang everyone we fight with, but ... the plans changed."

Amidst the burning fire, there was a new casket, in which Valgarv lay. Not for long, seeing as he was getting up.

"Huh. Nice visit card, Rangort," Luna muttered.

"Rangort?" Filia managed to stammer when Luna grabbed her and pulled her through the floor. They fell across the familiar passage to the edge of her soul.

Just barely had their feet touched proverbial ground or something hit Filia square in the face. Yelping, she pulled the shards of a yellow ball off her face. Luna had suffered a similar fate, except with a brown ball.

"What the hell?" Luna said as she tossed the shards away.

"Earthlord Rangort has a thing for throwing rocks at people," Filia said through gritted teeth. She nodded at the fence.

The Life Law Circle was mostly closed, but beyond it stood a humanoid of indiscernible gender, with light brown skin and wavy dark hair. The clothing they wore was colorful and ornate, one might suspect an outgoing, extravagant personality to match this appearance.

"Dropping by for soul food?" Luna asked.

The humanoid inclined their head, peering at the piece of Valwin that lay sealed within Filia's soul. Only a thin wire still connected the lifeless head to the outside world, a wire which Rangort now had their hand around.

"What is the meaning of this?" they asked, tugging once. Filia felt her entire soul jolt. Valwin had merely extended some power, but Rangort was consciously _here_ and could do so much more. And wanted more. The Life Law Circle expanded, Filia could not tell whether by her own weakness of the effort of the god. Rangort wanted in and the dizzyingly pleasant pull in her mind made it seem such an easy, right thing to oblige ...

Luna didn't care for that. Her smirk dropped and she bolted forward, forcing the circle closer with both hands. This was a mistake, Filia felt the godly power seep through the fence. Rangort could not enter her mind or soul, but could very much affect magic on her. A serpentine tendril came from the hand, wrapping around Luna's neck quicker than she could respond. With breaking force, she was pulled against the fence. At the moment of impact, all of the coherent image Filia used to navigate this 'place' blurred, because she didn't so much feel Luna's pain as that she felt it and was overpowered.

"You're not getting in her head," Luna whispered somewhere without direction. It sounded entirely too calm was someone being choked.

"Then answer me another way. Did Zelas give you any instructions other than to find your sister?"

"No."

The surrounding blurred again, the feeling went beyond pain, like her very being was being undermined. How long it went on and how deep it went Filia couldn't understand, all sense of time and self drifted in a void.

Rangort wanted to know why Luna and Filia did what they did here, Luna told them with a sense of irony that it was defense against this exact act. Rangort did not like this answer and wanted to know more. Luna refused, to Rangort's anger. For the first time, Filia truly feared her gods.

This fear finally overcome that sense she had to submit to holiness and she tried closing her soul's window to Rangort. She couldn't do it alone, but Luna's will was in perfect accord to hers in this matter.

When orientation returned, Rangort stood on the other side of the fence as if nothing had happened, but Luna lay in a heap, breathing heavily. Filia rushed to her, helping her stand. She was pushed away as Luna struggled to her feet. Her bangs were shorter, revealing her hateful yet so human eyes. The smirk was back, she looked more manic than ever.

"That _no_ also meant you can't get into _my_ mind, dusty."

"Wrong, I _can_ get in. I merely cannot afford to be noticed by my other numbers at this point, so I did not call for more power. Your objections mean nothing."

"The best surprise of the year. Anything else you wanted to share?"

"I've been trying to tell Filia Ul Copt that she needs to wake up," Rangort said, inclining their head to Filia.

"What? Why now?"

"Because Valgarv woke up. Stop his fight before it escalates, there are already to many witnesses."

Luna cast a quick look at Filia, who didn't know what to do with those words. Valgarv was gone. He had to be. This was a nightmare after all.

"The kid's not that guy, I met him. I'd have tasted it if anything of that monster was still in there."

"It's hard to tell what he exactly is, what with his abnormal astral composition," Rangort said. "Regardless, it is a fact that he is ruining the secrecy we must tend to. Filia, you must let either I or Luna aid you in removing the sleep spell that holds you."

Luna snapped her fingers. "Let's do this the quickest way."

An abyss opened between Luna and Filia, just a tiny one, but it was still a technical mile wide. No, it made no sense, but she dreamed. It had to be, her son wasn't Valgarv.

Luna suddenly stood behind Filia, raising her leg back.

"Wait!"

"Objection received and declined," Luna said as she kicked Filia.

"Luna, you're mean!" yelled as she flailed down the darkness.

"Thanks, it's family tradition!" Luna called back.

**· · · · · · ·**

Filia woke up, groaned and pulled the covers over her head. Another nightmare about Valgarv. It took a little before she realized Luna never was in her nightmares. Frowning, she sat up.

The details of her dream fell into place and with it all sense of a good night's sleep were gone. She jumped off the bed, materialized her clothes and bolted out of the door. Val's door was open, his room empty. As she feared.

She kicked in the door of Jillas and Elena, finding them both firmly under a sleep spell. She dismissed it and started rummaging through Jillas's trunk. The vulpen was still rubbing his one eye when Filia started throwing gunpowder bags and bullets at the bed.

"Miss Filia, is something the matter?" a horrified Elena asked.

"Yes! Emergency! Jillas, wake up and get armed! We're doing operation bat. Oh Siephied, _oh Luna_ , we need to hurry! Wait, we need to pack too! Jillas, by the time I woke up the kids and Gravos, you must be ready!"

She sped out of the room, leaving the befuddled vulpen to catch up. They'd manage, they always did. Gravos was to his feet much quicker after Filia dismissed the spell, but when she came to the room of the cubs it was empty.

Filia took in the hollowness, not knowing how to place this in her panic. The reality crept onto her mind that she was more concerned with Val than what happened to the cubs. Whether kinder or more egoistic, she wanted to say she was just better prepared for Val being in trouble — Valgarv hadn't really woken, he was gone — but children were missing and her thoughts only spiraled back whether this had anything to do with Val, before worrying over them.

"Miss Filia?"

Gravos's heavy hand on her shoulder didn't quite shake her out of it, and all she said was, "They're missing too. We have to find them too. Oh, miss Luna should have left me more time to ask questions ... that's assuming Rangort would bother answering! Arrgh!"

"I'd be all for tracking them down, but why don't you tell us what exactly happened?" Gravos said. "No offense, but you're panicking."

"Valgarv's fighting dragons!"

"I don't get it."

No, this wouldn't do. She slapped herself on the face with both hands before turning to Gravos.

"Gravos, you will escort Elena as she tracks down Palu and Molly. Jillas is coming with me to help Val."

"What makes ya think they're not in the same place?" he asked.

"Because Val won't be so foolish to get them involved in a fight," she said. Gravos frowned (deeper than usual, as he often seemed to frown) and was about to speak, so Filia added, "I've been told he's violent by a reliable source. Leave it at that, we don't ha—"

"Where's the enemy?!" Jillas yelled as he jumped out of his room, guns in both hands. Filia recognized the sleeker look of the weapons, nodded and said, "Follow me. Gravos, you explain to Elena."

Elena's confused gaze met hers, almost Filia stopped to explain. She couldn't though, not now.

She teleported herself and Jillas out of the temple, using the heavy holiness of the place to navigate from here to the nearest familiar area, the elven village. They arrived in the house they'd inhabited before moving to the factory. This way they circumvented the guards outside the temple, but they still landed the thick of activity. There was so much noise outside it was a wonder no one noticed the glow of her teleportation. However, a quick glance revealed that with all the light spells and torches, the place was drowned in yellow light. The elves were too busy preparing for a potential assault on top of that.

From the shouts, she learned bare little but the same rumor that her son was half devil. He was indeed in a fight with dragons, but _where_? Nobody seemed to know, or those that did had no interest in explaining any of the others. Filia sorely wished she could just teleport where ever she wanted. The nocturnal darkness made it even more difficult to navigate, she couldn't even see any detail on the surrounding mountains so any haphazard teleporting around might just kill her. Manifest in one bad location, and you could end up with a disintegrated foot or merged with a rock or tree.

Jillas pulled her sleeve. "Over there, gunmoll!"

Where Jillas pointed, she spotted the distinct blue, white and yellow that signified Memphis Linesword. She was uncharacteristically accompanied by beige, green, blue and pale yellow : Palu and Molly. Memphis held Palu with both arms, and Palu held Molly. Before her stood two elves whom Filia vaguely recognized, likely her parents.

"Mister Jillas, can you get closer to them? See whether they're alright, but don't let anyone but Memphis know we're here. We have no idea what the attitude is right now, for all we know we are to be arrested."

"I'm on it."

Jillas sneaked out, slipping through the shadows like the expert thief he could be if only he bothered. After what felt like entirely too long for Filia, saw his ears peak behind a barrel near Memphis. Thank goodness she noticed. Filia couldn't understand what she said, but her parents looked very confused as she darted into a back alley with the cubs.

Filia's clenching hands made marks in the windowsill, by the time Jillas returned her gloves were full of splinters and the sill was missing pieces. Jillas brought her up to date after making a little fuss over whether or not Memphis would get his kids to safety. A group of superstitious young elves and dragons had gotten it in their head that if Val was devil spawn, then maybe the other Ul Copts also were demonic in nature. They'd abducted the cubs to experiment, sure they would find evidence and present this to proud parents. Everyone else had sleep spells cast on them ... Val too, they said. Him having shaken it off was taken as evidence of wicked sorcery.

Jillas hesitated, but she urged him to continue. What he told her then sent chills down her back, even though the words were so simple.

"They say that when Val arrived, he killed them."

As much as she tried, she couldn't see couldn't see her little boy do it. She saw Valgarv, grinning madly as he aimed with nonchalant ease, madder yet when his prey was female ... no, not. He wasn't _here_. Val was just cornered, he was just defending himself. No revenge, he'd done it for Molly and Palu. Rangort was wrong, it wasn't Valgarv.

Repeating that to herself did little to calm her terror.

"You okay?"

She stiffly nodded. "I'm alright, but Val isn't. Did miss Memphis tell you were the battle is?"

"Yeah, somewhere down that canyon, they're herding him to the river. We won't be able to hear them, they've throw sound muffle spells all over the place to prevent avalanches."

"Then we'll find the river first. Maybe we can spot something from there, if not on the way," she said with failing voice.

They slipped out of the house and Filia transformed once she was well out of sight. The mountain range was dark under the moonless night sky and the air was so cold Filia cast a warmth spell for Jillas.

The lake and river glistened with the light of the milky way above, she followed it until she saw flashes of light to her left. Cutting sharply, she sped towards the battle ground. It had moved far away from the temple ruins, into the valley between a triple mountain circle where two roots of the river met.

"Mister Jillas? I'm about to cast my light spell, ready your weapons."

Operation bat was an emergency plan they had devised, where Jillas would use a more lethal variant of his usual bullets to shoot the wings of enemy dragons. Sheer wind pressure could rend apart the smallest tear in a wing, bringing down the dragon. Ideally, it would be a gradual descent so no one had to turn into a splatter.

Filia circled the battle, barely perceivable beyond the glint of attacks, smaller light spells and Zenaffa armor. The silhouettes of dragons and armored elves in flight were her best guess of where the center was, Val himself she did not see. Odd, sound muffling or not she should see a dragon his size.

"Oh my, what would you be doing so high tonight, miss Filia?"

She snapped her head to the source, who moved along with her flight effortlessly. "Xelloss! I could ask you the same. Why aren't you helping Val?"

"I'm afraid I can't. Not only am I too busy eliminating any devils who could snitch this all to Dynast Grauscherrer, your son is wearing a Zenaffa armor. I cannot teleport him."

That didn't sound right. How could he fight when locked in his child form? A Zenaffa armor might explain why he did not fly, but it shouldn't have enough mass to encompass even a golden dragon, let alone a grown Val.

"What do you mean?"

"He fights in a form that's rather similar to Valgarv. If I'd judge by the emotional landscape I tasted earlier, I dare say it's not merely his body but also his mind down there."

"No." It came out pathetic, and she didn't even know who she said no against. But Xelloss did not lie.

"I'm afraid I cannot be of help with any of your misgivings about that. Now if you'll excuse me, we have an audience of about fifty lesser demons who are terribly curious why we get along so _well_ ," Xelloss said with a shrug.

He vanished, off to kill his kind while Filia still wasn't sure she could get out of this without any of her own dying.

"We better move now, gotta save the lord," Jillas said. The click of his guns told her he was a lot more prepared than she was, and he had no fear for seeing Valgarv. The lord Valgarv.

Filia descended in a broad circle, chanting below her breath a light spell strong enough to shroud a small area in daylight, creating a small star. It drained energy and she guessed they hadn't done it yet to avoid giving Val a clear shot with laserbreath.

When her star unfolded, they had only a few seconds to asses the scene.

Warriors were in a wide circle around dry corner of the riverbed, at their center was a bloody battlefield. Dragons with broken wings and cracked necks, a few elves in distorted heaps with uncommanded armor writhing around them. A circle of three elves and two dragons, still stood, all of whom had a variant of a spear.

In their midst was what seemed to Filia a chimera of her son and Valgarv. He had the height and wings of the warrior, though his hair was long like her son's and he had no horn or facial markings. His jacket was shredded in the back, the pants only holding up because they were made up of loose enough stretch cloth to deal with spontaneous tail growth. In his pose was all of the feral aggression she knew Valgarv to hold. A distorted, asymmetric white metal surrounded him.

Her nightmares came true, seeded in how he was imperfectly reborn, how there was still devil in there and that the old hatred would well up. She couldn't see where defense stopped and spite began for him.

Her star's light froze the scene, all eyes drawn to it and thus her as well.

"Restrain her!" That was Azonge's voice, Filia realized. He had to be one of the transformed dragons in the circle, but she didn't have time to really look. Five airborne dragons broke formation to surround her. She recognized the technique, her own clan had used similar to tackle dragons to the ground. They'd herd her down first, then tackle.

"Mister Jillas, your cue!"

With uncanny precision, he shot the nearest dragon in the left wing, the second close after. This caused enough confusion to let Filia slip through, but more dragons joined to intercept her.

"Both wings," she said with hesitation, and Jillas obliged without. She dove down twirling around her axis, so Jillas had aim at all next three dragons got tears in either wing and fell faster. The others had to try and break their fall.

The battle below picked up again. Val tried flying to meet her, but didn't get far with the Zenaffa armor holding him captive.

Jillas tossed a circle of bombs around him, which exploded with complimentary smokescreen. This caught all of the Kataart inhabitants no shortage of confusion. Technology and magic in these regions was thus that prince Posel's magic tanks were a thing and fireballs were a thing, but exploding cannonballs were not and Filia had forbidden him to use them when Memphis practiced; they did enough damage without gunpowder.

"She can use traceless magic too!" someone called. The other dragons backed off.

Filia was seconds away from the rising smoke. The elves darted out of it, but the dragons just struck their wings to regain clarity. From behind, she saw Azonge rear his head, preparing to fire at Val ... who didn't see it.

Filia leaned aside and Jillas saw, wasting no time to shoot.

The bullet hit him in the knee, right in the weak flesh of the inner side. Azonge roared out and collapsed, all his weight coming down wrong. If heavy creatures fell, even from a small height, they could die. Dragons never wore Zenaffa armor because in order to fly or even walk with all their weight, they needed to constantly invoke environmental magic. Azonge was in range of Val's distorting field, so he fell without those magic. The sickening crack of breaking bones was both horrific and a relief.

She herself was affected as well, so she landed at the edge of the barely perceivable field and transformed, making sure her weight was acceptable before marching into the smoke. Jillas stayed behind, keeping an eye on the enemy.

Her footsteps were heavy, but magic wasn't gone, just harder to wield. It was very likely the Zenaffa armor had something to do with it, interacting with Val's inherent distortion.

When a glimpse of black feathers passed by, she called, "Val! Come here!"

The glimpse vanished and she ran after it, almost tripping over Azonge's twitching wing. She could see him clearer now, he was bloodied and in pain. His wings and neck stuck at an odd angle, and on his neck Val had crawled. Both his arms had transformed into their semi dragon shape and the claws were digging into Azonge's neck.

"Val, no!"

He responded in no way, no glance or hesitation. Azonge started to trash around, and Filia was knocked off her feet. She couldn't get closer, and Val didn't listen. Through the wildness, glimpses of his face revealed that mad gleam. The joy he took in a fight brought to the end.

Filia had to do something, or else she might just as well lie down and die.

Wouldn't it be terribly handy if she could just take away his anger and _make_ him calm? Where every other dramatic emotion ran wild, that thought struck root. For all Luna's fears and all Filia had seen in their shared dreams, it didn't feel so evil anymore to tamper with someone's mind if this saved lives.

Rash acts would not help everyone thought. Val suddenly becoming complacent however would make him an easy target when the others would attack. Gods knew they had every reason to take the opening, Filia wasn't blind to the carnage Val had wrought. But if she could use fusion magic, she'd be able to dissolve everything they could throw his way, even the magic that powered the Zenaffa armors.

She had no hopes for perfect fusion magic, but if only a little was at her command she could buy herself the time to bring this all to a stalemate.

There was a mental component to fusion magic. Amelia had declared it to be the power of love, but Filia was loathe to apply this on anything that involved Xelloss. That, and the reality was a lot more basic, as she'd realized while creating the vessels. It came down to a concord that required not only a common goal but also trust that the other wasn't about to use their magic in any unwanted way. He probably had an idea what was happening around here. Filia's gamble lay not just in that Xelloss was reasonable and beyond silly doubts, but in herself too. She didn't trust him enough, but ...

She focused a Holy Rezast on herself. It would have been something to be proud of, if she could say she could put her vices with Xelloss aside and wield fusion magic through the strength of her own mind. As if she had time for such arrogance! She let the magic corrode away at all her negativity. It didn't vanish entirely, but there was an overpowering calmness that let her focus on the small core that remained : knowing that at the end of the day, Xelloss would see to it that she and her family were unharmed.

She let go of her light spell, casting a variant of the Zelas Phalanx that drew on the power of Xelloss instead. Suddenly close, she felt the crawl in her spine that indicated Xelloss. He said nothing, did not appear. For a moment she doubted it worked at all, but when the threads turned a blue fire, she knew it had.

Fanning her hands, numerous threads of neutralizing magic flared into the clearing sky, at the elves and their armors and at the dragons in the air. She drained their inherent flight magic, cat's cradle on a magic level. The fusion flicked away, unstable and weak as it was when it only built on a vague idea (that both Filia and Xelloss needed to end this), but it had done it's task : the skies cleared.

She cast another Holy Rezast, focusing it on Val this time with every enforcement she could. The thin red circle expanded and turned white, large enough to capture both Azonge and Val inside. The four points could dimly be seen inside, only with her mind's eye. And somehow, perhaps only by the power of imagination, she saw the miasma itself, and the way it anchored within living beings. Val's hot red rage was torn away, and then she knew why a holy circle was red at all : it absorbed it in return for positive energy. An exchange after all.

Silence fell as their struggle ceased, like surprise had caught them both. Val's bloody grip on the dragon's neck loosened and he finally looked at Filia. Azonge stopped thrashing, she heard him mutter the start of a healing spell.

Almost, but never quite, Val was like a child again who feared reprimand. He did not move, however.

Filia could not see herself as the true mother, felt like the intimidated priestess before the demon. The sound of her footsteps on the rocks was too hard, the sharpness of the wind on her skin too distinct. Adrenaline coursed through her veins, its effect only suppressed by the Holy Rezast. When she grabbed his draconic arm and pulled, she couldn't hide the trembling.

"Val, it's enough."

"But he—"

"Enough, Val! Do you even see what you're doing? This is murder!"

"I'm defending us," he growled without sounding like his heart was in it anymore. If anything put a strain on the Holy Rezast spell, it was Filia's rising anger exactly because of that. Why didn't he stop if this wasn't what he really wanted?

"No! We don't need them to die!"

"I'd beg to differ," Xelloss said icily from somewhere behind them. "They won't just let you go."

"Shut up, garbage," Filia snapped, but couldn't look back. She tugged at Val's arm again. "You don't have to kill him. I'm here now, the others are waiting. We're going to leave."

Val's claw opened, Azonge's head fell to the ground with a sickening thud.

"Lord Azonge, command that your warriors give us free passage," she said.

"And die when you have a clear shot? We'll die making a stand," he rasped.

"You idiot! Swallow your pride already!"

Azonge's red eye narrowed and he growled deeply.

Giving up on reasoning with Azonge, Filia tried pulling at Val's wing to no avail. Val wasn't even regarding her anymore, he kept watch on those around like a hawk. By now the smoke had subsided and the warriors were reformatting. A single high roar made them freeze.

Milgazia descended before them while the immediate attackers cleared the way for him. One armorless elf remained, the commander of the Zenaffa armor that encased Val.

"Please come closer, then you'll be able to command it," Filia said, forcing her voice to be even. "Let us go and we will leave."

"Can you assure our safety?" Milgazia asked.

"I can," she lied. Again she put her weight on Val, this time she succeeded, but only because someone invisible had given Val a push. Xelloss was still around, albeit immaterial.

Milgazia cast a light spell, and now Filia saw what the shadows had hidden before. Val was covered in bruises and wounds, which would have torn all her concern to him if she didn't see his victims just as clearly. Few in ways that did not indicate a painful death. With the Zenaffa armor around him, Val had resorted to raw physical attacks, in which none could match him. The elf's fear to approach was more than understandable, given he needed to step past three mashed corpses.

It took but one quick touch of a finger for the armor to recognize its master and reconnect. It quickly curled around the elf, sprouted wings and off they were.

Val let out a deeply held breath. He fell to his knees, wings drawing back into his body like he gave up a strain held too long. She took him by both arms and forced him to look at her.

"Don't ever do this again," she said. Whether it came out as she wanted she could not tell. Val didn't stop looking lost, but he started to morph back to his child form, healing his own wounds in the process. Gently, she scooped him in her arms.

"It this also usual business, Filia Ul Copt?" Milgazia asked, his voice even now a dreary monotone.

"No, it's not," she said. "Forgive me."

"What for? Did you have a hand in this?"

"No, but ... " She held Val closer and his arms encircled her neck. There was nothing she could say to Milgazia and his people, even as she felt she should have foreseen this, that she should have been there, been more cautious, been many things just out of her reach. Been so much she couldn't achieve.

"Mister Jillas, let's go!"

The vulpen was at her side at once and she expanded the teleportation field. The start of Milgazia's words — objection or otherwise — was drowned out by her own wordless chant. Then the hollow echoes of the ruins surrounded them.

They had arrived in the most magically significant area, easiest for Filia to tune into. There, she sank through her knees, exhaustion finally catching up with her. Val's arms tightened around her neck for a moment, then he pushed himself off her lap. Still wordless, he looked around the softly lit hall.

"Hey, gunmolly," Jillas said. "Isn't this where you work? It sounds too empty."

He was right : every single vessel was gone. For what little Filia's heart hadn't already sunk, it now the another dip. She didn't entirely know what it meant, but the most obvious was that somewhere between last evening and now, Xelloss had vacated the place. He'd _been_ here. Couldn't he have noticed the elves sneaking around? Or had he come here after the battle started? In that case, he could have taken the time to talk to Milgazia and make him end the battle earlier.

In the many competing emotions she felt, anger was crawling up, but there was no garbage to rage at.

She set Val down before her, but he refused to meet her eyes. She ran her hands through his hair and said, "Val, please tell me your side of the story."

His small fingers clutched her robe, a few tears dropped down his face until he broke down crying. Jillas knelt down behind him, putting a hand on his back. They stayed like this for a while, one confused boy between the two who knew what he was but not how to help him.

She remembered the rest of her family now the rush was subsiding. It was well possible they would be cornered as well, though she believed Memphis wasn't likely to let them get hurt. Especially not when Milgazia was in charge and Azonge knocked out. He'd be up in a few hours, however.

She wanted nothing more than to find the rest and leave before that happened, but her energy was so low she wouldn't be able to teleport immediately. Given how quiet it was here, it wouldn't hurt to stay. Truth be said, she was terrified that if she went into the halls and met anyone, Val would again see a reason to fight. Jillas was out of bullets, she couldn't even promise safety.

Picking up Val, she walked to the kiln, where the three sat down just out of sight of a potentially opening door.

"Wanna tell us what happened now?" Jillas asked Val.

"Yes," he said in a small voice.

He starting from the end, a disjointed account of how everyone started swarming him, how some called him devil spawn and others recognized him as Ancient Dragon. The Zenaffa armor was hostile and didn't obey, yet didn't leave either. They tried impaling him with spears, he dodged every time.

That was when he said it : "It was just like when the other goldens killed my clan, except they used those magic sucking machines to disable all our shields. Then they came with the spears. They herded us together so that even if those willing to fight shot their laserbreath, we killed ourselves as well. I had to live, mom. I had to fight, they were going to kill me too!"

How had he remembered that? _Why?_

"Val, how do you know that?" Jillas asked where Filia dared not.

"Claire's been helping me. The girl in the bible dimension. I'm sorry, mom. I didn't want to worry you by saying she was there. Xelloss said ... "

"Said what?" Jillas asked.

"You'd all be worried if you knew. But he also said we should be kin slayers together. Mom, I don't know anymore. What was I supposed to do? I promise I'll do it right next time!"

She ran her hand through his hair again, which was as much a comfort for him as it was for her. There was no one in the world she could ask for advise about the murderous past of a child crawling back up and she had no wisdom of her own to share here. But she could hardly tell him that, so she gave him the same old worlds and her useless gestures.

"Only defend yourself as far as you need to go, or you will be like those who did you wrong. Xelloss was wrong to encourage you and I'll ... just don't ever listen to him again, I beg you."

"I'm sorry."

"Val ... " She wanted to say it was alright, but it really wasn't. What could she say now, demand he make it up? How could she ever ask him to pay for this, let alone for the millions who had died when Valgarv guided Dark Star to the dragon temples? "What exactly did Xelloss tell you that made you think it was alright to kill them?"

"They'd chase us if I didn't, and then you'd all be in danger. That I might just as well learn it, cause they weren't going to stop."

A typical Xelloss twist of the truth. He probably had said so right in the middle of the battle, when Val couldn't think straight.

"What kind of danger, Val?"

"He didn't say."

"Xelloss was pouring oil on the fire, Val. We are now in greater danger than before because they've seen you kill. You should have gone to lord Milgazia as soon as you saw him and asked for protection."

"Then why did he tell me those things?"

"Because that gives Xelloss power over what you become," she said. "One day, when you are strong enough, Zelas will want to use you for her ends and that's why Xelloss is always around. Innocent remarks and small lessons can amount to instability in the future."

"Yeah," Jillas said. "Like that pot you made when you were four, with all the small rocks in it."

"It broke really quickly," Val muttered. "I guess if I'd break I could be a devil."

"Not if you stay strong," she said, for the first time managing a smile.

Filia didn't actually have a reason to believe Zelas planned to recruit her son, but it didn't do harm to be prepared. One day Filia would tell him that in a past life, Xelloss had tried to torture him to death. She no longer doubted she'd do so. But not now. Valgarv's hatred for golden dragons was lived on, Val did not need another target.

"Alright, I'm feeling better. Let's go meet the others, I'm sure they're done packing," she lied.

"But mom ... Claire's still in the mountain. Can't we take her along?"

"I don't know. I'll have to see what I can make Xelloss spill."

Honestly, she had no interest in letting anyone whose company Xelloss endorsed hang out with Val. It was possible that the Ragradia remnant he had mentioned was in fact this girl, but according to Lina and Milgazia Garv had dealt with that remnant for once and for all. SHe wanted to know before deciding.

"Val, tell me all you know about this Claire," she said as she took him by the hand. "But speak quietly."

Jillas went ahead, sniffing out anyone in the way. Val brought his voice to a whisper.

What she heard surprised her greatly. It had never occurred to her that gods could survive destruction, let alone that _thoughts_ could have ghosts. Luna had assured her that Siephied's mind was all gone and that she had virtually no knowledge or memories in her heritage. Val's explanation of Claire being Ragradia's life affirmative thoughts was way out there. What did that even imply about the piece of Valwin's power that resided in her own soul?

For one, it stuck here and there she'd been doing magic without out loud spells several times this evening. For another, she was recovering energy a little too quickly.

Val's rattled on over all the things Claire had shown him, and Filia spent her mental time between wondering whether she was something of a chimera now or not, and whether Val's cheer was a cover or whether he still felt the remorse she's seen just minutes ago.

There was a distance between the work hall and their quarters, but they met no one. The temple had flooded empty, or everyone hid. They arrived without incident. Gravos had finished pack the saddle, Filia all but needed to transform and slip under it. She would have done so if Memphis hadn't sat atop it, talking with Elena and Gravos.

Her eyes widened when she realized what particular greenhead had just arrived. Val turned his eyes down in response to her fear.

"Don't panic!" Memphis yelped, sounding like she was about to panic herself. "I just brought the kids back and thought I'd stick around to see whether anyone needed healing. It's alright!"

"You don't sound like you believe anything's alright, lass," Jillas said.

She gave him a pained look. "You have to admit this is all really crazy, Jillas. We're all really afraid, okay? It's not just Xelloss now. They're thinking about sealing you all."

Jillas gave a shrug and a smile. "It just comes with the family, the craziness. And I'm betting you we're not going to end up sealed."

Filia cringed. Crazy was hardly a suitable word to describe any of these otherwise perfectly sane people, save for the potential that Valgarv started looking out of her son's eyes.

"The old dragons say he's an Ancient Dragon, but they're all supposed to be dead. Is he perhaps —"

"Miss Memphis, this isn't a conversation we can have today," Filia said. "Please let us leave."

Memphis looked a little miffed, but Filia honestly didn't care right now. She prodded Val to join the cubs and stepped below the harness. Transforming was a clumsier affair if she did it like this, but she could deal with the discomforts once everyone was teleported somewhere safe. Her energy really was building up, she felt she could bring them at least a short distance. Still, not as far as she wanted. She had a decent sense of where Luna was, but it was still a place she had never actually been and a quarter across the globe.

When Gravos had secured the traps and everyone had climbed on, Memphis stood before her with both hands on her hips as if she desperately wanted to pose a confident air.

"So ... eh, keep in touch? You're going to Sailoon, right?"

Filia sighed. "Probably. How many others know?"

"Just me and uncle Milgazia. We won't tell, promise."

Filia wondered just how much fear for her life was behind that. Perhaps Xelloss had spoken to them, or perhaps Memphis seen family members die today. Perhaps both. And there was nothing Filia could change about it.

"Thank you, miss Memphis. Pass on my gratitude to lord Milgazia as well."

"See you -sniff- later!" Jillas said with a snotty nose, as he always got teary with farewells, even if he did not care for the departing. With Memphis he did, so it was worse. Filia managed her second smile tonight and let them them exchange exercise plans they had to keep till they met again.

Once all were on her back, Filia teleported away. She planned to hop several magical key points until it was safe to fly. Her first designation was a small bundle of inconspicuous but clear energy that seemed to pull, Val assured her it was the Claire Bible entrance.

Upon arrival, she filled most of the area before what appeared a solid rock wall. The magic was strong here, enough to let her navigate at least to the city where she'd seen the tanks.

She was about to take that leap when Val said, "Mom, we could just hide in here till you're stronger. Claire will protect us, she knows the whole maze. I bet she means that since she made this spot stronger."

"Actually, _I_ advised her to do so."

Off course, wishing Xelloss wouldn't show up eventually was wasted on the stars. As if he had no care in the world, he drifted cross legged above Filia, peering down through squinted eyes.

"Xelloss, tell me, is there any reason aside of your sick sense of humor this disaster had to happen?"

"Oh, I'm to blame now? Excuse me for keeping your son safe."

"There were at least five things you could have done that did not involve encouraging him to be a kinslayer!"

Xelloss shrugged. "Considering the situation was bound to explode sooner or later, I figured it wasn't a big deal. The skirmish provided good cover for me to perform a more thorough cleaning. You see, you have not even heard the most dangerous whispers, but I'm afraid certain devils have. An untimely end to our vacation here was inevitable."

"Give a straight answer for a change, sewer priest. Did you set this up, or in any way send the ball rolling on what happening tonight?"

"No. As my lord likes to say, unforeseen circumstances always happen. Such is the nature of the beast called chaos. Modern day chaos, off course, not the void," he said with his sickeningly happy smile and a wagging finger. Filia just wanted to slap it away, but even that she couldn't pull off.

"I suppose I could seize control of the dragon tribe," Xelloss continued, " but such a thing would draw too much attention from the surrounding devils. I have so far been able to ensure the demise of those who got too close and those who have seen me. However, I cannot guarantee perfection. Ah well, such is the way. Now, miss Filia, I have come here with an offer that could help us both."

"No," Filia said at once.

"Are you sure, miss Filia? There are an awful lot of dragons and devils around here, and I believe you're close to your limit."

No, she wasn't sure at all. "Okay, spit it out."

"I had not expected you to be able to even manipulate my energy," he said. "Let alone do anything that intricate as wielding the Life Law."

"Off course not. It won't be the first time your arrogance let you underestimate an opponent," she said, narrowing her eyes at him. Luna had a big share on Filia obtaining that knowledge, but Xelloss did not need to know.

"Yes, well ... if you can repeat what you did there, then you may be able to make it happen quicker than I and my lord can. I would like to hire you to employ that power."

On better days, she would have appreciated the non-backhanded compliment and made a spiel about how unusual it was for him not to be covertly rude, did that hurt? Now it just annoyed her, he was wasting time.

"I want details."

"We will create something within the space of the Claire Bible. I'm sure Val already told you about Claire."

"We can't do creation magic, we can't even do proper fusion magic! What I did there was a far cry from what miss Amelia and mister Zelgadis could do, let alone miss Lina."

He reached into his satchel, and produced a red gem. "Oh, I think we _will_ have creation magic."

He took Filia's claw and put the gem in it. It had the strangest radiation, rife with familiar devil resonance. Lina had carried four of these.

"How did you get a new demonsblood talisman?"

Xelloss shrugged. "My lord alone knows the origin. Now please hurry up and decide, miss Filia. We are out in the open."

Val pulled at her mane.

"Mom, I think we're going to get Claire out of there! She said something about leaving, but that she'd first have to go to a special place for it. But if what Xelloss says works, we can bring her out right here! Please?"

"I ... there's no risk for us in this?" she said, tilting her head at Xelloss.

"Not from what I've been given to understand," Xelloss said, poking the gem once. Leave it to him to treat such a potent magical item as a toy.

A soft, red glow arose, and power radiated to the point where Filia's spine itched from the demonic energy.

And then ...

"Dammit, Xelloss, why did you call me?"

Both Xelloss and Filia did a double take, the former by poking again, the latter by dropping her jaw.

"I know it's you on the other side, Xelloss. Answer me!"

It couldn't be. Or perhaps it could. That sounded an awful lot like Lina Inverse.

"What's going on?" Filia asked.

"Hey, Filia. We're at that part already? Xelloss, Tel Al Metaliom."

"Ehm, what? I'm afraid I don't understand," Xelloss said, poking a third time. "Tell all who?"

"Neither do I!" Filia cried. "For heaven's sake, miss Lina, where are you?"

"Eh ... I can't tell you where I am, Xelloss isn't allowed to know the details yet. It's complicated. I'm guessing there's a disaster of some sort that means everything's on the fast track?"

"Absolutely!" Xelloss chirped. "We have a potential war on our hands and no idea who started it."

"Ugh," and the gem flickered in irritation. "Filia, you better rile up to channel Siephied. I'm going to do a lot of long distance mumbo jumbo."

"There's a plan that both you and Xelloss work on?"

"Well, yeah. Wait, no to the contract. But there's a plan. A very off time plan. This whole thing wasn't supposed to happen till another two years at least! And I was supposed to be back!"

Filia almost let out a sigh of relief, but remembered Xelloss was involved and this required skepticism. She invoked her priestess powers and sent an holy query through the gem. The curse magic made it difficult to keep stable, but it reached the other end.

On the other end, beyond a distance farther than she could feel, was indeed the soul signature of Lina Inverse.


	12. Xelloss's Triad

At first thought, it did not add up. There was a tantalizing mystery before him, but letting curiosity get the best of him wouldn't help.

Xelloss took back the gem and guided the group into the Claire Bible dimension. He entered last, making sure none had seen them enter and was waiting to follow. He cast spell on the entrance to alert him of followers, just in case.

Claire's spectral form had found the group as he rejoined them. Val was jabbering entirely too blissfully about how they were going to get her out now. He was the only one able to perceive her, so the others stood by mystified.

"Xelloss, you intend to modify the plan?" Claire asked, nodding at the gem. "Lina Inverse, do you agree?"

That sounded very much like Claire was expected Lina's involvement. How interesting, which made it all the worse that he had to not think about it lest he figure out the wrong things.

"Yeah, I owe you some anyway. You're going to like personhood, I promise."

Claire just shrugged. "Someone tell Filia Ul Copt to transform into human self. There's an alcove nearby where the others can remain while we work."

They followed her instructions, or rather, everyone but Xelloss did. When they called him out, he excused himself with the truth of needing lots of concentration to keep the feeble connection of the talisman going. Not that this would've stopped him from helping set up camp, but he had his relative dignity still.

It also gave him a moment to concentrate on the miasma he could taste from the relevant.

Filia fussed over all the tiny details of setting up camp, flitting all over the place and making mistakes. She buried herself under small concerns to avoid the guilt she felt and the fear of the monster within her son.

In stark contrast, Val didn't have enough guilt. The boy sat by, kicking his legs in the air and feeling like a child rapped on the fingers, that particular flavor of a child who had disappointed their beloved parent. A flint of feeling betrayed by her rejection of his actions was there too. No true remorse. Xelloss couldn't tell whether it was because he was too young in dragon years, or because he was Valgarv.

After her pack was settled to satisfaction, Filia hurriedly finished her account to Lina, who kept asking about the potential for war, as well as repeated inquiries over whether they were sure Vrabazard and Valwin hadn't seen anything. Filia for her part kept asking about what was going on, until Lina snapped that she couldn't tell anymore than what had been in the letter.

"What letter?"

"I sent you a magically fortified letter with details. Xelloss was going to pick you up one day and bring you somewhere you'd talk with Lezo Greywords about making a soul jar, which was _supposed_ to happen before the fusion magic vessel part."

"Oh my. Val had a phase where he kept lots of birds as pet. I lost a lot of paper to nests during that time," Filia said, looking suitably dejected.

Lina made that particular groaning sound that he knew was accompanied by her putting her hands in her hair, a lovely frustrated gesture. "And here I was hoping that things were better on your end."

"Miss Lina, can't you explain more? Val says something about incarnating Claire and Xelloss is doing nothing but obnoxious smiling!" Filia said, her stew of anxiety and frustration spiking deliciously. Xelloss opened his miasma channels wide, taking in the negativity with vigor.

"We're supposed to incarnate Granny Aqua, but since you didn't start with bragging about your awesome soul jar, I bet we're going to do the actual incarnation here and now. Xelloss?" Lina said.

"Yes, that would be the plan. I wasn't aware of any fusion magic vessel plans before I was given the order to come here, however. Be careful what you tell me, or miss Filia. After all, we're both hapless pawns in this complicated scheme," he drawled, hoping to irritate Filia. Any time now, she was snap under all this godly machination.

"You'll know this anyway, because you're going to deliver them. The fusion magic vessel project wasn't meant to happen in Kataart, it was meant to happen in Sailoon after the subtraction of the Claire Bible from Kataart. Granny Aqua should be there to create the kind of space needed to make the vessels without the wrong gods noticing, but doing that would take a long time."

"Given our circumstances, Earthlord Rangort has—" He didn't get any farther, since Filia grabbed his arm and pulled, forcing his attention to her.

"Why didn't you tell me this?" she said, her miasma and face incredulous more so than angry. "Val, is this true? We're really going to reincarnate the Aqualord?"

The boy nodded eagerly. "Yes! Claire's excited too. I think. Sometimes she forgets expressions. But she doesn't lie."

Filia clapped her hands together. "Let's do it!"

Xelloss got an astral throat full of happiness and was confronted with the terrifying reality of there being no astral gag reflex. To add insult to injury, Filia's grabby mode activated. She scooped up Val for a one arm hug and caught Xelloss in the other. One of the spikes of her circlet pressed into his cheek and actually stung since it was an object of holy magic.

"I know where the Claire Bible is, that way!" Val said, pointing in roughly the right direction. Filia shifted Val so he could leaned on her shoulder and grabbed Xelloss by the arm, ready to bolt.

"Filia, why did Xelloss just sound like a strangled dog?"

This snapped Filia back to her senses. She pushed Xelloss away, stared at him, and grew a wicked grin.

"Oh, he ate something bad," she declared with cheer to match Lina at her most happy go lucky.

"Aha," Lina said, her tone knowing. She was all too familiar with Filia in Happy Good Cause mode, grabbing included. "Try more happy thoughts!"

Val took cue and curled both arms around his Filia's neck. "Love you, mom!"

She hugged back, and Xelloss shut his miasma channels as tightly as he could. The sour 'scent' of the emotions was still there, even if he did not swallow.

Where Filia felt some glee at being able to get back at Xelloss, Val had a more sadistic joy out of having caused him pain. The boy stared at Xelloss out of the corner of his eye, grinning as he reveled in his love for his mother and his ... entirely too potent hatred. If the boy hadn't felt so strongly for Filia and the rest of the family, he would have counted him as Valgarv and arranged for him to get lost in the maze, so he could kill him at ease.

Xelloss twitched, and it wasn't just because Filia had gotten under his skin.

The moment passed. Filia set him down and explained he had to stay here, as his strange astral hollow might get in the way. He giddiness at the project didn't cease, but became more tempered. To be honest, Xelloss was surprised she still had it in her to feel that way about anything involving gods.

He was just in the middle of figuring out a way to ask about that without actually asking when Filia rendered the effort moot.

"Xelloss, why were you surprised that I'd be eager to do this?"

"I was surprised by your new levels of rudeness!" he snapped.

"Maybe that too," she said, sadly not irritated. "But you expected me to be angry, didn't you?"

Claire floated on Filia's other side, looking unusually harsh. She didn't want time to be wasted.

"I assumed you'd have reservations about any involvement with the gods. Ever since your visit to Zephyria, you were in accord with miss Luna's ideas about them," Xelloss said, resisting the temptation to spin out her comment into a deliciously backward debate over why the rudeness was more relevant than the truth.

"I trust Val's word. Besides, nothing changed about my our opinion about Vrabazard, Valwin or Rangort. But this is Aqualord Ragradia."

There was probably more to it, especially since he tasted the subtle increase of discomfort that accompanied poor liars.

Speaking of tasting emotions, he had a problem and an answer on his hands regarding the talisman, miss Lina and the fact he knew things now.

He was given the talisman for Ragradia's remnants, if they were to become unstable. He had reason to suspect had happened. Valgarv hadn't just incidentally surfaced after meeting Claire, or he would have gone rogue on the wind dragons. Claire had mentioned something about first life memories, and that she had been unable to prevent the surfacing of second life memories. Those shouldn't even be there, astral creatures stories memories differently than organic ones. This was the very reason reincarnating devil-human chimeras didn't love their identities, while the human side was gone.

The closest explanation he could think of was that remnants of Garv resonated with him, which meant there were weaknesses in the dimension far greater than he's expected. Hence, he recruited Filia. They could use the talisman as centerpoint for fusion magic vessels to create fundamental creation. It would be directionless, but Granny Aqua could likely settle in it. Given that Filia was casually screwing up life laws and could wield fusion magic a little, it seemed optional.

Now that Lina was not only involved, but apparently more up to date with the plan than he was, he just rolled with it. Technically this was outside of orders, but he was certain he was true to the goal of the orders. Following orders to the letter was only service for twits such as Fibrizo. The Beast Monarch deserved better.

Besides, Lina was likely the sorcerer intended for the incarnation all along. She'd betrayed as much when she said it was time already.

So on second thought, Xelloss was getting the tiniest of clues.

His liege had expressed _curiosity_ at where Lina was, strong enough for him to taste it, but she had never expressed _confusion_ as to why the phenomenally destructive Lina Inverse was utterly traceless. Likely she didn't know where Lina was, but had a good idea as to what she was doing and why. There had to be a plan in motion far more complex than he'd previously expected, which made him giddy enough that it didn't even bother him that Filia had started ranting at Lina about garbage.

And that response right there was a huge problem.

Not the curiosity, the _excitement_. He couldn't un-know. He couldn't unfeel. If he met Lina in the wrong conditions, with the wrong witnesses, this could betray him and his liege. He'd be expecting her, be excited, not weary and the wrong kind of curious.

See, tere was only one condition during which his liege kept secrets for him : they had secrets to keep for the other devil lords.

Faking the right emotions and suppressing the wrong ones was as difficult as deciding to change self image without disintegrating. That is to say, it couldn't be done on the whim. Emotional self management had its limits and that was a catastrophe waiting to happen when one greatest art _has_ to be the deception of emotion eaters.

Xelloss was a known eccentric with excessive emotions about little things. Nobody blinked twice if he felt something unusual for a situation, and they all knew he didn't lie. Zelas Metaliom however was more level. She had been created to be a straight forward evil overlord, after all. She was already failing this and the others had noticed.

In front of Dynast Grauscherrer and Deep Sea Dalphin, and any of their subordinates, there were times when Xelloss had to be able to honestly say he only knew his orders and what they were, and times when he had to be genuinely surprised or confused or distraught. Half the time, his liege was present and he had to stand close to cover for her lack of expected emotions; most devils were so detached from the flow they couldn't tell more than the general direction of the emotions they tasted.

This constant knife's edge that the beast devils lived on made it all the more vexing that holy magic could just tamper with the mind. More so when people like Filia just happened to figure out how to tinker with it, people who'd not appreciate what power they held.

He had seen what Filia seemed unaware of. That which mortals called the Life Law was the system of energy that arranged the mind, that which existed beyond physical existence. It wove into Megiddo's pull, it was part of souls, it was the force that tied astral magic to spells so it could be wielded by mere sounds of mortals. Those sounds were rigid systems leaving little room for interpretation, yet exactly that she'd done. On the astral plane the circle had unfolded, seeped through the walls of the three souls and brought in energy to take away their rage and contempt. She had even cut away her own inconvenient emotions, but only the active ones. (He hoped it wasn't permanent.)

How much more efficient he and his liege could plan if the necessary act was as simple as using some magic to feign ignorance or confidence.

It wasn't sheer willpower or innate skill what did this, Filia or not. Maybe it related to the tinkering the gods had done to allow an organic to channel magic beyond their natural capacity. He planned to investigate in a moment's time.

Mystery, frustration and wayward plans aside, he also desperately needed a novel way to vex Filia because any accusation of incompetence was going to fall flat after this.

 _"Well, what does that say about you, needing me to tell you how to handle clay or revive god particles?"_ spoken in that haughty Filia tone reserved especially for him. _  
_

While Xelloss rearranged his mental checklist of Filia's buttons, Lina and Filia went over the details of the magic. Xelloss, unlimited by a physical brain, had no trouble keeping track of both strings of information. Not that he could have missed it if he tried to : when Filia heard putting the right magic together might just take two days, she produced some delicious emotional stew. Anxiety, frustration, insecurity — ah, so that confidence before only existed because despair had pushed the rest away — irritation and most of all, the abrupt realization she needed more sleep.

"We can make it go quicker if you cast me a Vision Spell. I can use it in reverse to project myself over to your place."

Filia cast the spell, and after a bit of flickering and swearing on Lina's end, a golden haze rose from the talisman.

A terribly familiar haze that painted Lina like he'd seen her only once before, shrouded in the gold of chaos.

Xelloss nearly fell to his knees, stopped only by a suddenly worried Filia. She had a hand on his shoulder and gave him that look she had for sick people.

"Hey, hey," Lina said, waving her hands dismissively. "Don't get worked up over this, just a side effect of me cheating a tad with chaos magic. There's more spells to invoke that power than merely Giga Slave and Ragna Blade, you know. This way, I'll be able to command some magic long distance. Xelloss, you're going to have to keep this talisman activated with your magic. I'll use you as beacon, you use me as beacon. Got it?"

"As you say, miss Lina," he said, still unsure on whether he shouldn't fall to his knees just in case Lucifer was truly watching.

The hazy Lina turned to Claire, who had taken on Granny Aqua mode for her. "Hey there, glad to see you're still in one piece, granny!"

"Mostly, I am," she said with a simple smile.

They reached the Claire Bible, where Xelloss placed the gem on the ground right below the core. The ghostly Lina faded briefly before solidifying, though the haze never really disappeared. She wore clothing of a style he did not recognize, further confirmed his theory she was nowhere in the lands of the ex-barrier.

Well, didn't that just add to the mystery?

The one he wasn't supposed to figure anything out about just yet.

"Don't think I've forgotten I'm being hired," Filia said, providing a handy distraction to latch onto. "We are discussing my payment before I do _anything_."

"Yep. Pay up, Xelloss," Lina echoed. "Or I'm going to test whether I can fire any Drag Slaves through this thing."

Bargaining cost him a promise to teleport everyone out of Kataart safely and not kill any dragons or let them be killed by Val if he could help it, along with all his tea, and an amount of (legally obtained) money equal to the degree Filia had lost due to being unable to run her business empire for the duration of this project. He couldn't remotely cover all that. There would be credit on that awaiting payment, which he could arrange to pay off by building a factory or two, storages included and magically secured (damn Lina for telling Filia Xelloss was good at reconstructing buildings even if he hadn't seen them before).

On top of that, he was to not do any "teasing, insulting, provoking or otherwise needling Filia", as Lina dictated. Yet Filia was allowed to call him garbage as much as she wanted. This counted as stress relief for Filia, Lina claimed.

"I suppose I have no choice. As always, you drive a hard bargain, miss Lina."

Lina winked. "That's how we always do it, don't we, Convenience Item Number 4?"

"You're number 5," Xelloss told Filia and then enjoyed the mild irritation. Just like if he had taunted her last year, the same annoyance, tempered by experience now, but as expected. This was a relief more than he cared to admit.

From the emotional scent of it all, her self-emotion-washing hadn't been permanent. The personality that led to those emotions still existed, so those emotions only remained missing for as long as she wasn't confronted with a situation (him) that rekindled their growth. It would have been a loss if such a vibrant part of her personality just disappeared.

She didn't need to repeat it for today, however. Without years of backdrop, but all her other emotions in place, as was her new temperance, the contempt she felt for him was less intense. A quick test run confirmed that Filia was enough in concord with Xelloss over this goal that they could fuse magic.

Lina's spectral projection took hold of the black light they produced, turning it golden between her palms. A knowing grin spread on Lina's face. She rammed her hands together, turning the gold into mist that filled the hall.

Claire's form solidified, but only for a moment. She had just enough time to blink and smile before dispersing into the golden haze. Xelloss still detected her presence, in fact, it was far more solid than before. The haze caused a tremor through the magic and the space contorted, closer to the trio. Coiling around them to create an inner sanctum was a wall of blue and green scales. The fog condensed into small golden rectangles on its surface.

"Excellent. We'll be working from the inside out," Lina said, devious glee all over her face. It was the face of a Lina who had been given a challenge. "Now fuel up."

This time, Xelloss did not invoke his own energy, but that of Shabranigdu directly. A cloud of darkness mingled with the light Filia poured out. He was forever grateful to the Lord of Nightmares he could even do this without dying, but that didn't make it a pleasant experience. He sense of self threatened to be lost, held together only under strain of golden chains. There was always the niggling fear he lost a little of himself in the process.

Once they had produced to Lina's satisfaction, Filia took her light between the fingers and twisted it into a thread. Xelloss latched onto the challenge she quietly posed and tried to rival her in how many thin yet usable threads they could make.

Lina took the strands and started weaving them together, sometimes turning them into other shapes, and usually dissolving them into the haze that dropped from the scaled walls. Every so now and then, she ordered them to perform one spell or another, learning along the way.

One hour became two hours, and onto four and then seven. Lina fabricated spells from scratch, while Filia and Xelloss did their best to put the pieces together. They ended up with an expanding stack of magical circles, each responsible for keeping particular effect in place.

Filia handled everything pertaining to the Life Law, Xelloss was left with the more impersonal magic and the darkness. Barriers that would hold the energies in place, method that would stabilize possible irregularities, and a conduit that fed a steady flow of equal holiness and accursedness to Lina, who could not be here to regulate it herself.

The Claire Bible was inaccessible to Xelloss, so Filia handled that if Lina needed to know anything. This was slow at first, but halfway through she picked up on the terminology and figured out things on her own. In between her and Lina, this gave way to high velocity magical theorizing where Filia combined her skill for the dimensional applications of magic with Lina's sensory potency. They filled a skill void for one another : Lina was powerful but so often caused collateral damage with the uncontrolled scope of her spells, while Filia lacked the impact and diversity, but made up for this with magical dexterity. There were still holes left, but Xelloss had those covered. He was a jack of (almost all) trades, and the role suited him just fine.

The rule he wasn't to annoy Filia was pointless. There was a time for that, but now it was more fascinating to watch new magic created. He kept his simple smile, but opened his eyes just to take in more. The city outside was sold only drab bread and tasteless wine. The candy shop was open and he was the child that had inherited it, here now without supervision and an appetite.

Of the trillions of lives in the world, most didn't even count as sentient. Microbes, plants, viruses might as well not be life to him, and animals were little better. Even those who had the gift of sapience often were little more than blind flock animals, unknowingly following the desires of their body and the subconsciously imprinted prejudices of their society and deemed themselves wise and self sufficient for it. It was not them that set the truly interesting events in motion.

These two, they were unusual, unorthodox, striving for control over their own fate. Chosen pursuit coupled with creativity and intelligence made for a peak in the dreams of the Lord of Nightmares. It was these kinds of people that he would call good, a designation that did not exist on a moral compass, but on one of chaos and future. They propelled the world forward and would cause change. ( Even if sometimes Filia was a tad too good at getting under his skin, but that he could tolerate. It was a talent she chose to exercise, unlike the slave to his own oblivious boringness that was Milgazia. )

One universal trait of devils was that they were all about getting things done. The gods already had what they wanted, the devils had nothing of their desire because everything existed, them included. Acknowledging and appreciating feats of strength was an ability of even the most hardcore existence hater. It was what little things like appreciation that _errors_ started. Xelloss quite liked where a string of errors had led him, Shabranigdu notwithstanding. In fact, on some mad plane he dared say that he liked his coworkers for what they were and what they did to the world.

What they did right now : the creation of life.

Aiding vitality was taboo for devils, appreciation of skill or not. If the others found out he was having fun in reviving a god, well, ... if Xelloss were a human, the social equivalent would be to gleefully torture someone to death before the Sailoon royals, disembowelment included, then having intercourse with the corpse. Utterly unnatural. Xelloss stood in disgrace of everything Ruby Eye Shabranigdu stood for, yet only took issue with his own blasphemy insofar his dignity was concerned.

Then again, it wasn't really blasphemy if he acted in accord to the will of the Lord of Nightmares. As far as he and his liege were concerned, this will was spelled out crystal clear by the existence of Lina Inverse and everything she'd changed. She who wielded destruction to preserve existence, she destroyed to save. Half the devil world cried for her death, because nothing was worse that a mere human commanded the power of the Lord of Nightmares and used it to prolong the existence of the world.

Then again, for the average devil, that fact that there was an everything was the worst. This gave extra flavor to being a heretic.

Blissful to all sorts of existential complications, Lina and Filia were strewing around magic as if they had no transcendental care in the world. Xelloss didn't feel particularly tidy either.

Their work field had all the elegance of a magical scrapyard, glowing remnants of their experiments afloat in the broken space. It wasn't entirely a disinclination to clean up (though Lina wasn't one to do so anyway). By the eighth hour of work, Filia was only standing because she was in a neurological flow and was drawing directly on Siephied's energy to replenish her own.

The wall of scales no longer moved, only a husk of power remained. Granny Aqua, Claire, Ragradia, whatever she chose to call herself, had been cocooned in the center of the triad. Lina wove the last strands of magic in a small black sphere that radiated gold. It was lifeforce especially for the unique being that would bind the divine essence to its new form and sustain it as a soul did.

The cocoon hovered above a four pointed circle, below which was a smaller one of five points, another one of four, one of six, and one more of four. They'd keep the creation magic stationary as Lina let it go to focus on integrating Ragradia with the new soul.

"Are you two ready to wrap it up? Once I let this go, you need to feed a constant line of light and dark into this sphere, we can't risk it depleting along the way."

Filia and Xelloss nodded and place their right hands below the top circle. Lina floated between them, letting the creation magic loose before her. Xelloss and Filia laid their fingers around it while Lina set her spectral hands on the cocoon. Immediately he felt the tug of power, it was eating up magic at terrifying speed. The imperfections wasted energy, but it was the best they could do on short notice, even with someone like Lina Inverse leading the project.

Lina cupped the cocoon, hardening it into a translucent blue shell. It was nearly identical to the one Val had been reborn from, save that the form inside was not yet recognizable. Lina's smirk turned to a smile at the same time Xelloss a true astral god come into being. The Claire Bible merged back with the remnant of Ragradia's thoughts, just a flicker and there was a god. The husk of scales fell away, the fluctuations of the environment froze amidst the biomechanic scenery.

The cocoon grew beyond its earliest size, now thriving primarily on the aquatic holiness of the area. Its shell broke when the environment had gone entirely dark, with only the red glow of the talisman and Lina's golden aura to illuminate anything. Their light fell on a small bundle of indistinct blue and white. A tiny hand appeared from the vague form, then a head morphed out. Like a twisted fetus, she took a shape exactly as the illusion she'd created for Val. Aquamarine eyes opened without noticing anything and she took her first breath.

Her first sound was the cry of any human child brought into the world without water to land in. Filia fell to her knees and carefully lifted the girl on her lap, brushing the hair off her face.

"What's going on?" she asked.

"Organity," Xelloss chirped while drinking in the negativity. "She is an astral being experiencing flesh and every fiber of its weakness for the first time."

Claire cried again, a shrill sound unfit to a human. There were no tears.

Filia whispered a greeting and didn't expect one in return. It didn't matter to Filia that she held a being who remembered the first days of the world, reverence had no room when she was in nurse mode. This was Filia serving the animating principle not because of morality or law, but sympathy. A form of love that was also pain, it tasted toxic yet he could feed on it a little.

However, he would have preferred to feed on Lina's emotions right now. Her expression was drawn and foul as she glared at him.

"Xelloss, you told her about the octopuses?" she hissed.

"Off course! Why should I not mention such a charming incident?"

Claire tried saying something, but only produced incoherent burbling sounds.

"She'll have to learn how to use her body, since it's entirely new," Xelloss said as he knelt down opposite of miss Filia. "But all the knowledge she possessed already should be there, so it won't take long."

Filia didn't look up from the girl, so he put a finger on the gem of her headband and pushed.

"You need to understand that if it ever comes down it, even if it no longer were about protecting miss Claire, other devils are _not to know_ what transpired here. We'll discuss the details of who else _can_ know later."

"I won't tell them, I promise."

Claire nodded and pointed in a certain direction. Filia caught on that camp was that way, lifted the girl and started walking.

Xelloss picked up the talisman and followed at a distance long enough to obscure sound.

"I assume you expect miss Claire will get miss Filia filled in on the necessary details?" he asked Lina, who floated to his left.

"Do I assume wrong? You better not be planning to take her straight to Wolfpack Island, cause Filia's not going to let her go without a fight."

Xelloss chuckled. "I'd be interested in seeing what she'd try, but no. As you indicated earlier, the next stage of the project will be in Sailoon. Miss Filia is headed there anyway."

Lina nodded, a thoughtful look on her face. "I can't tell you much, but you need to keep a closer eye on Val. There can't be a repeat of what happened just before."

"I will do my best, but I may be otherwise occupied."

"If there's ever a true risk Valgarv will come out, kill him before he does. That's an order I can give you on behalf of your lord."

"If so, it would be my pleasure." Xelloss wasn't particularly inclined towards torture beyond getting a decent meal (irritation tasted so much better), but Valgarv was one of those special people.

Claire must have heard them, because she chose that moment to look over Filia's shoulder. Xelloss frowned slightly, sampling her miasma. She cared what happened to Val beyond just the basic instinct to make others live as long as possible. That could be both useful to manipulate or complicate matters. Was this in line with his liege's plan?

"Miss Lina, if I may ask, what exactly have you created here?"

"Just a basic human on this plane," she said with a shrug. "You could say she functions like a chimera of astral and organic, in a phase like when Valgarv stopped being able to subtract to the astral plane entirely. Minus the pain, off course."

"I see. Well then, thank you for your help, miss Lina," Xelloss said.

"Yeah, yeah. Don't mess this up for anyone or I _will_ get you," she said before dispersing and reappearing near Filia and Claire. "You two, you better be in one piece by the time I get back, got it?"

Filia smiled and nodded. "We'll do our best."

Xelloss knew that to mean _I will go to stupid lengths to carry that promise out as literary as possible_.

Lina vanished without as much as a poof, leaving them in the dark. Xelloss placed it back in the subspace of his satchel. Seeing as the job he'd hired Filia for was now over, he stalled creating a light.

As hoped, Filia promptly collided with a corner. "Xelloss!"

The natural order was restored.

**· · · · · · ·**

Val was thrilled to thrilled to see Claire, and Xelloss his distance to avoid even having to smell all the happy emotions. While Claire was getting acquainted to just how annoying seven year old boys are when they want to play, Filia suggested they could just approach the dragons and have Claire speak in their favor. Once she had her voice, off course.

Claire gave him such a startled look (for as far as he could tell astrally) that he knew to shoot that down even if he didn't have doubts of his own. Filia was swayed with surprising ease. The dragons had not paid tribute to Granny Aqua as Ragradia, they would not do so to Claire. And even if they did, she would only set up herself as a target for the devils. With much of her power used up against Garv, she had very little to defend herself with.

There was also the queasy little detail that neither Xelloss nor Filia had any interest in telling any superstitious dragons they'd done fusion magic, collapsed the Claire Bible dimension and produced a little girl. That would come across entirely the wrong way.

Onto more relevant matters.

Dragon teleportation came in two flavors. Filia's brand was somewhat quirky, but Granny Aqua and Valgarv had known a cleaner variant that spread a white field below the targets, rather than enveloped them with gold. Nobody got dropped at the end of long trips, unfortunately, so he had to admit he was glad he'd get to use Filia's variant. Claire couldn't teleport anyone, as it turned out.

Using a remnant of holy magic he had absorbed, he teleported them to a decrepit shrine at the foot of the Kataart Mountains. Abandoned as it was, Filia could catch up on her sleep there before heading to Sailoon. Claire would deal with any further details once she could speak, or at least write.

Minus Claire, for whom consideration in her reborn fell in the category of repaid debts (it wouldn't do if she died by broken neck now), he dropped them all on arrival. Just to make up for lost time.

Xelloss hung around Kataart in the shadows for half a day, close to the ground where most devils did not come. The seal of Lei Magnus still brimmed with as much power as before, perhaps even more as there was no more sub dimension to uphold. Truly, Lei Magnus Shabranigdu was now sealed in a corpse of a god.

The average devil was under the impression some sort of chimera had been running rampant, and their inability to see clearly even from the sky was attributed to fusion magic, which could blot out astral sight even up close. There were some dissenting voice that spoke of other things, but they stopped dissenting after Xelloss dealt some more critical existence failure.

After this, he went into the astral open and claimed to have been spying around the dragons to get a handle on whether they really were creating fusion magic, and fed the right gossipy devils the half truth that _yes, they had_ , but only momentarily by creating a chimera, who snapped. This relied heavily on letting others assume he agreed with certain assumptions and theories. By the end of it, all the local devils thought he'd laid it out crystal clear.

The dragons were less easy to get a word on. He couldn't get too close without their senses betraying him, so he relied on enhanced hearing in the physical form. There were plenty of chatters around now, especially near the elves.

Perhaps it was just that most dragons were so boring (they hadn't had a single revolution!), but Xelloss was getting increasingly needy of massacre as he heard them perpetuate that disgusting rumor of his non-existent relationship. Intellectual appreciation of unique individuals was one thing, but the mere suggestion he'd be taken over by physical desires of a body he didn't even possess was an insult of the highest orders. Some called him Dragon Seducer now. Yuck.

He found Memphis and trailed her till she updated some family members on the past night. Milgazia was firmly of the opinion that yes, they had seen an Ancient Dragon, no there was no demon spawn. Azonge was of the opposite opinion, claiming Milgazia had not felt what he'd felt.

Oddly enough it was Azonge who had a more favorable idea about Filia now, he'd gotten it into his head she was sent by Siephied to deal with what ordinary dragons could not deal with, swore up and down he'd seen their supreme god's blessing on her. Those inclined to believe him were making a lot of noise that challenged whether Siephied had truly sunk into the Sea of Chaos. Other dragons yet paid lip service to Milgazia only because they thought Azonge was a little nuts while having the own theories about hybrids.

Azonge's change of position was unusual, given his initial opinions. Filia had been in range of Val's distortion at the time, preventing Xelloss from getting a clear look. Hmm, more mysteries.

The water dragons awaited word from the wind dragons, who experienced issues with tracking down the scattered dragons of the east. They didn't plan to pursue Filia and her pack. In a while, the dragons would find out the Claire Bible and its dimension was gone, doubtlessly if said wind dragons requested access. Panic would likely follow, so he hoped Milgazia and Memphis would keep their word and not spill the name Sailoon.

Realizing he wouldn't learn more, he returned to Wolfpack Island.

**· · · · · · ·**

Wolfpack Island was protected by an astral barrier that prevented undetected entrance and scrying by other astral beings, a small scale variant of the barrier that had once encompassed Ragradia's domain. Even Xelloss had to enter through the proverbial front door. Beyond this lay a forest of flesh, vines and veins, the feeding ground of the astral wolfpack and the pets. It brimmed with life, though many a mortal would would call it unnatural. Most devils would too.

Certain gods apparently didn't.

When Xelloss arrived, there was the pin prick of a breach in the barrier through which holy power flowed. He recognized the signature.

Rangort wasn't truly _here_. Gods had such vast power and connection with the flow of the world that they could create small projections far from their actual location. Such an action would be tantamount to chopping off part of their own power for a devil and creating a new self.

Xelloss was careful to approach, suspecting they discussed the Beast Monarch's plans. He had a lesser devil announce him, a different one called him in.

The inner sanctum was brighter than its usual pitch black, sourceless light strong enough that the marble walls and the roots growing up them were visible even to mortal eyes. The Beast Monarch lay across her divan, her projection the aristocratic seductress complete with tabacco. The thick smoke of incense and cigarettes surrounded her. She demanded attention, through aura and composure. Xelloss almost missed the other figure, were it not for his liege snapping in its direction.

"You will not come onto my domain and accuse me of such petty methods!"

"I lay out the facts as I perceived them," Rangort said in a void so monotone Xelloss could cite three dozen zombies with more personality.

"Think me no fool, Earthlord. I can taste your indignation to be deep enough I'd call it a treat, were I in better mood. You claim I would double cross you in such a manner?"

"Double crossing is your trade mark. That is why are speaking to begin with. You are double crossing Shabranigdu."

"Let me try it this way : I am not offended you suspect me. I am offended you consider my intelligence so low I would be sloppy enough to leave such an obvious hole for you to find. Lady Corpse is acting on her own or you wouldn't have noticed."

Her form remained regal and controlled, but he didn't even need to swallow to understand just how furious she was. Below her words lay power begging to burst. Her howl was a whisper in tone, but the entire island felt the tremor through the astral plane.

It was to this woman he now had to tell in detail the many ways his mission didn't quite turn out as intended. Even so, he couldn't push aside his curiosity. Lady Corpse, eh?

When his liege had calmed sufficiently, she nodded at him. He phased before her and took a knee, face to the black floor. Rangort's reflection stared at him over the reflective marble. Today it was a gruff, unattractive man of small stature. Rangort's personality wasn't undefined enough that "humor Zelas because she cooperates better" was negligible, today's form spelled trouble.

"Xelloss, report."

He took a deep, proverbial breath of the negativity energy, steeled himself, and spoke. His liege usually allowed him to stand, but not today.

She did not reply for the longest time. There was only a cold, copper stare mirrored to him and sheer disbelief wafting off of her. Even her infamous anger took a back seat.

"A dragon told a bad joke," she finally said, slowly, testing the words. It didn't sound right when she said it. With greater emphasis, she continued, "A dragon told a bad joke, leading to some unfortunate rumors, leading to curious teens, leading to Valgarv's momentary return, leading to an evacuation plan, leading to you deciding to incarnate Ragradia ahead of time, leading to you find out Lina Inverse is on my pay check. _Because a dragon told a bad joke_?"

Her voice had risen to a shrill shriek. Every ounce of her miasma tasted like she wanted to lash out at him, but she didn't.

"Where did I go wrong? I allowed for a little eccentricity, but an allergy to jokes? Earthlord Rangort, did this actually happen as he told me, or is he losing it?"

Rangort's eyes flicked to her, contempt and disdain rising at the question, but that was gone as easily as dust.

"Milgazia's jokes _are_ bad. Even I, queen of dullness as you like to call me behind my back, are capable of understand the effect. Given your priests's erroneously complex nature, I understand the reaction. I was intent to let your priest kill him and let Azonge gain sole leadership, blaming Milgazia's dark arts for him being forsaken. Azonge has the devotion where Milgazia merely has respect for the gods."

The Beast Monarch flicked her cigarette away. "Then why didn't you let him? We now have a whole tribe of who know too much."

"That was unforeseen. At the time, keeping Filia Ul Copt cooperative seemed more fruitful."

"You'd have an easier time controlling your dragons if you came down from your throne every once in a while. You wouldn't need to wait for reasons to deal with issues. Honestly, a boring joke?" She shook her head, still seething. "For want of a nail!"

Xelloss would have liked to crawl away, but held his position.

"I have no interest in gaining the definition needed to be a social leader. I am a god and you a devil, we have no business in the pretense of organic life."

"May I remind you that without my pretense, I would not be helping you?"

"You may. Why?"

Something shattered against the wall. Brown legs in a draping gown marched past him and back again while splinters of the divan burned holes through the marble walls.

Zelas stopped dead before Rangort's projection, peering down at the unmoving figure.

"You arrogant dragon," she growled. "You demean me at every turn, yet you act as if I am defective? What purpose does antagonizing me have?"

Rangort looked up, a stoic mismatch to her intimidating form. "I hope you mature back to a more reasonable entity, without useless outbursts or sentiments. It would be easier for us to cooperate. Speaking of sentiment, I disagree with what walked out of that space."

Xelloss couldn't help his own irritation. Granny Aqua was not particularly interesting herself, but she had an appreciation for the right people and last he saw her, she was intent to get things done. Rangort had so much more freedom and yet was so much stiffer.

"You have no place to disagree, priest," Rangort said. "I am aware you have visited the remnant and let that abomination meet it. You should look at your own if you seek failings waiting to become a disaster. Gods should not live like mortals."

"I had to repay her," Xelloss said evenly, eyes open. "Life in exchange for life, it's as simple as that. Real life, off course. Not your idea of it."

" _You_ could use to be more simple," Rangort said. The astral plane's misty density rippled as power shot his way. It was the same type as Filia had used : less attack than it was function. Alteration. He wanted to flee, but even if he'd been given permission to move, he didn't know how to escape a god.

On both planes, walls of white feathers surrounded him before anything hit. Zelas's wings cut off his sight, but he still could hear.

"Get out, Earthlord."

"You acknowledge that it causes problems if he behaves thus. I have humored too much already. Let me correct him, he will make a better tool. You'll find it more useful if I do it than if Filia Ul Copt experiments."

" _Get out_."

Rangort's projection remained a second longer. Then it vaporized and there was no more god on Wolfpack Island.

Xelloss pushed the terror aside. "My liege? May I move?"

She made a dismissive wave as she dropped herself on the newly reformed divan, drawing a wine glass from subspace. Xelloss stood up.

"You smell curious about that remark. Hmm? Experiments?" she asked.

"Indeed I do."

"Rangort told me miss Filia decided to experiment with Life Law Circles because you lost control there," she said. "She apparently wished to be able to modify minds."

Xelloss smiled. "Well, I'm glad she's being cautious. She is rather underpowered in our little game. However, miss Filia's variant only removes active emotions, she does not alter personalities."

"But she might eventually. Rangort seems to believe it's the same as e can do."

"Perhaps. I shall see."

She took a long breath, the resulting smoke turned serpentine. With a long suffering sigh, she said, "There used to be a time dragons and humans could not get to you."

"My apologies, my liege."

She chuckled. "You may keep those, but do take note of the pattern. Miss Lina, lady Luna, lord Milgazia, miss Filia. Inverses and Dragons. Be wise enough to know none are wolves."

He heard what she really meant. He could enjoy people or hate them, but they were not to be considered part of the pack, or even enemy packs. There was only them and prey or enemy.

Long since, he had stopped saying that he would not disappoint. None should say so with absolute certainty, because none could predict the future. To say otherwise would be overblown pride, which would not serve his master well enough. Nothing was more important than her will, all his flaws be damned. But there was one thing he could say absolutely.

"You have my loyalty above all, my liege," he said. "I will note my failings and serve better in the future."

She gave him a wry smile, pleased with his blasphemous words no matter how often she heard them.

Above all in this world.

Loyalty should not exist for devils. Only allegiance was natural. Ultimate allegiance was owed to Shabranigdu, and only him as agent of the world's end. Not her. During Fibrizo's plot, this had nearly been fatal. What should have been his honor had only elicited hatred for being 'borrowed'. Loyalty was a concept, but certain emotions accompanied it, up for grabs for the Hellmaster. Fibrizo hadn't told him or his mistress anything beyond his order to protect Lina, he knew something was wrong. Off course, starting and ending with talismans that Xelloss didn't need to sell nor employ at all, Fibrizo had been quite right to suspect this.

Which reminded him to reach into his satchel, intent to return the new talisman to his liege.

It wasn't there.

There was, however, an astrally concealed hole in said satchel.

Great. He'd just gotten his liege in a decent mood and now he had to say, "My liege, I seem to have lost that talisman you gave me."

Wolfpack Island shook.


	13. Claire's Choices

**· · · · · · ·**

Change usually started by chance and rarely choice, but choices were always required to deal with it. She's known that, really, but it wasn't the first time she had underestimated the severity of something.

The world had outgrown the gods it was born alongside.

Sure, let's incarnate ahead of time. She'd get farther away from Lei Magnus and any possible experiments around him. What could possibly be impractical about it?

They traveled by the cover of night, Ragradia's sharp awareness their guide. Her astral body, albeit small and weak, had all the clarity of a god : the wind on Filia's scales, the clouds that kept their rain, the farms below, and the faraway holy tree she used as light tower. Filia's kenosis was excellent, she could just implant the right direction in her mind. This was easy.

Everything else was not.

All the knowledge she possessed since the world's creation itself could not have prepared her for this, for she only knew existence from the astral reality. Existing on the physical plane was a bloody pain. Hunched on the shaky saddle, she was sleep deprived, her muscles twitched or slacked and she needed to constantly pay attention to her heartbeart and digestion. Naturally born organic creatures had a subconscious side to their mind that took care of those, Ragradia didn't.

The blanket she was huddled in consisted out of hundreds of fibers, which she felt even through her magically created clothes. Avoiding movement was impossible, as they were airborne on a dragon. Ragradia's mortal body was in peak shape, hyper aware of everything and then her astral senses added in. The body's seat of the soul wasn't capable of handling that just yet.

"Claire, want some jam on your bread?" Val asked.

She shook her head, knowing the battle her guts would put up. Either they wouldn't cooperate, or some natural reflex might kick in only to demand she throw up. She ate his happiness instead.

**· · · · · · ·**

The times they landed to sleep in an inn were the most tolerable, when her body partially paralyzed itself with sleep. She couldn't move away from it on the astral plane, but had an easier time spreading her attention. She needed it both for Rangort's constant questioning and to keep Luna out of Filia's mind. More often than not, she put her body to sleep at what Filia deemed odd places.

That was one reason why having a child's body was useful. Claire was the clumsy silent girl, not the deranged woman to those who saw her. She could be carried around and no humans expected her to be vocal, responsible or otherwise engaged with their society. Zoning out allowed her time to get a hang on creating systems to keep the body functional.

After four days of this, she had herself sorted out well enough to visit Filia's dreams without risk.

**· · · · · · ·**

Ragradia found herself twice within Filia's dreamscapes. One was a rough representation of her Ragradia form, the other was a cute variant of her Claire form. It jarred Filia when Claire started talking through her in this form, invoking a sort of dissonance with her lifeless expression. Ragradia made note that she had to improve this, put it on the back burner before coming to business.

"I'm going to teach you a magical signature, that of the holy tree in Sailoon, so you may attempt to teleport us there."

"Would you like some tea?" asked a very uneasy Filia as the scenery changed to a cake shop.

"I want to make progress."

"Uhm, alright, but that doesn't mean we can't have some tea," Filia said with forced cheer. She took the role of shop owner and selected a cake. Water started to boil in a kettle. Claire was incapable of impatience, so she observed.

She could tell as much as the embroidery on the curtains. It indicated a highly visual and detail oriented mind. All that focus was on trivial human culture things. Filia was an eccentric dragon, it was easy to see why the gods had pushed her into her role. One needed to be out there very much to get along with Lina Inverse, Xelloss and the other lot.

Claire let go of her projection a little and Filia's imagination took over. In her eyes, children were adorable and needed protection and were preferred to be very happy and carefree. Dream Claire laughed and chowed down on the cake before expressing a preference for strawberries. Ragradia had no such preference, but Filia had seen her accepting to Val's jam enthusiasm. Ragradia liked to eat the enthusiasm, off course.

Filia had devoured 24 cookies with her tea, somehow, and sliced each of them another piece of cake. "Now, how did you intend to teach me about that?"

Through a cake-filled mouth, Claire made her projection say, "I will implant the knowledge through a simulation, as this appears to work best for you. I will also teach you to draw power from the piece of Valwin you have in your soul. It won't be much, but it'll give you a boost."

"Excellent, thank you. I'll be glad to need less garbage to get around. Maybe I can also use that to draw in Luna. She hasn't been around since we left Kataart, I bet that's cause there is less magical resonance here."

"I've kept her away."

"What?"

The shop lost its sunlight and the cakes their color. Outside in the physical world, Claire tasted distress in Filia's miasma. It took her a second to realize why.

Oops, she'd just told a mortal she had isolated her mind from her friends. Right. Bad. No imprisoning mortals, they don't like it.

"Just till I could tell you this, I'll let her in once I've said something very important."

The shop was a little brighter again and Filia's face a little less disturbed. "I hope that includes an explanation on what the scheme being played is."

Dream Claire sighed, Filia already knew she would get no answer.

"I'm sorry, I cannot tell you. I do not think you are skilled enough to keep secrets from her."

The shop broke away and they stood in an ancient temple. Against her intent, Ragradia's form that of the dragon god, hovering in an impossibly large dome over a small but defiant Filia.

"Why should I keep secrets from her?" Filia asked sharply.

"Because she will make the wrong decisions if she knows too much. No harm should come to her, but certain things will have to happen that will make her _believe_ she will die. The logistics speak against it, but if Luna operates on her own law."

"What if I tell her what you told me?"

"That won't matter, she already believes she's in danger. As long as she doesn't know what we plan, she can't counterplan." The words didn't have the desired effect, so she added, "Once we pass a certain point, I will tell both of you all the details."

Filia remained skeptical, her tail swishing like an irritated cat.

Ragradia forced her dream form back to the cute child and had it say, "I promise," with an extra dose of happy face (that might have been hijacked from Xelloss).

"Rangort doesn't know everything either, does he? He thinks Zelas is double crossing him through Luna and appeared afraid. And soul jars? Where would I be talking to Lezo Greywords? Tell me, you apparently could tell Val."

Oh damn. Ragradia scourged Filia's brain, desperate to see whether Rangort had caught anything of that. Val wasn't supposed to talk to Filia about that.

Rangort was under the impression Lina would make a soul jar upon her return (Lina had neither patience nor skill for jar sculpting, actually). Given that recent stunt in hell, Rangort was better off not knowing that Lezo Greywords was meant to get involved. That might lead em to conclude Zelas meant to put those two pieces of Shabranigdu in soul jars. Which would be spectacularly redundant, given what they _really_ meant to do with them, but it was something reasonable to fear for Rangort.

She couldn't be sure if Rangort had found out about this, because Filia shut her out right then and there. Ragradia was left with the impression of the words, "You're not getting dessert this evening."

That evening (meaning it was in the morning) Filia hesitated, doubted her dreams, and gave her dessert.

**· · · · · · ·**

The next night, they experimented with teleportation. Claire implanted the exact sense of direction as needed, Filia chalked up the necesary energy, and off they were.

There was a thoroughly unpleasant situation with crashing into the tree due to cannonballs. The Sailoon forces had been expecting hostile dragons and had a station to guard the tree. Fortunately, a certain Sylphiel lived in the tree, recognized Filia and allowed for facts to be sorted from fiction.

Ragradia preferred to sit out the formalities by letting Val teach her to walk properly.

**· · · · · · ·**

They arrived in Sailoon City by inconspicuous horse cart, and when they got off, Ragradia had her first wound.

Just a simple one, she fell and scraped her arms open on the road. So technically simple, so nervously complicated. The tears came without command. Had she possessed any sense of pride and dignity, it would have hurt her all the more to be reduced to this state. Perhaps that would have been easier? Pride was something mental, she could deal with that. This persistent knowledge she was weak left her unsatisfied.

Did mortals even realize how occupied with themselves they were every second, without even paying attention to themselves?

Ragradia didn't want to be like that, but she couldn't not.

**· · · · · · ·**

Everything needed _opinions_. Opinions she couldn't just base on cold logic. What kind of clothes did she like? What kind of fabric to make those clothes out did she like? What kind of colors? What kind of food? How well cooked should the fish me? The simple global view she was accustomed to know the world in was irrelevant.

All these things she was asked when they were in the castle and offered food and wardrobe to fit in. Filia had given her pen and a notebook so she could write answers, but with her poor muscle control (whyyyy) she only produced scribbles. Val got good at deciphering them very quickly.

Though, given Amelia's meaningless words, Claire didn't think spoken language got her much further. The woman had a lot to say about very little, and it was completely silly. Xelloss was not on the path to redemption, redemption was a social construct of organics. He was above it, just as much as Ragradia was incapable of guilt over those who had died due to her negligence.

At least she was a chimera, as planned. Golem and Blow Demon too, excellent.

She let the talking wash over herself while trying to figure out how to properly control her intestines. She was pretty sure the nausea wasn't normal, she'd never noticed it on the ground before.

**· · · · · · ·**

Filia bought a villa, Claire got her own room. She filled it with magic crystals to amplify her functioning. It was only temporary, until she got used to the noise of her organic body. She had to retrain her astral senses. It was absurd that she hadn't realized the city had a temple she could have teleport to.

She trained her senses at every moment, whether her body slept, ate or trained muscles. Though this, she saw Sailoon.

Sailoon was mostly humans, but every so now and then there were chimeras that combined human, blow demon and rock golem. A greater number had merged only with blow demons. Claire was a little disappointed Sailoon was not quite the force she had hoped for, but there should be a sufficient amount of magical soldiers.

Some people felt permanently uncomfortable with themselves. At one point, Val asked a guard why he had changed. He gave the boy an odd look before saying he served his country with pride. Claire tasted the pride and consumed it, but had to filter out a bitterness.

Pride was useful for such things, it got people to do practical things even when they didn't really want to. Amelia had never dreamed of being a chimera, but after Xelloss had pushed her in the right direction with convenient logic and emotion, she had taken the bait.

It could also make them do stupid things, which was why one had to take care to mold the right sort of pride. Hmm, once she got around to rebooting her religion, she'd put more accent on the pride of serving her.

**· · · · · · ·**

The astral plane wasn't half as muddy for gods as it was for devils, though not for an innate reason. The Flow existed everywhere, gods could tap into it leisure. This was her sight from afar. If she treated the flow itself as her sense and her storage, she could accumulate a greater mind. She needed it to process everything.

A man beat his child to death in a district to the east, a swindler got a tug on his line in the south and a family was evicted to the wast. Someone like Filia would go mad to realize how little she could do about the pain and injustice. She needed delusion to be able to afford empathy. Ragradia didn't have such trivialities, but she did have an instinct.

**· · · · · · ·**

Val got a private mentor in the know, so he could be properly schooled without risk of snipping over accidental transformations. Filia fretted over him anyway.

It became apparent that Filia was still stuck on the idea of him and her as little kids. Either she did not want to process their conversation in dreams, or she was afraid.

Even if she braved the poisonous tasted of negative emotions, she didn't know the thoughts behind it. Whether Filia feared some truth or the failure of her new ceramics branch, she couldn't tell.

**· · · · · · ·**

For all its talk of justice, Sailoon was only the realm of heterosexual pale male humans. Chimeraism had changed very little about this.

Chimeras were "the marvelous result of human ingenuity". Stereotypes of beast folk went unchallenged and so Filia had to put up a legal fight to be allowed to employ them in her Sailoon branch of Julecopt Corporations. Not that it mattered much for the family since the money belonged to everyone (though it went into the hands of the more money responsible adults) but once the guild had made it clear why they objected, Filia set her foot down on principle.

She slammed straight into a wall of sexism here. While Sailoon loved its princess, its court contained only one female knight and every member of the ruling class was male. Female mega-cooperation moguls were hard to swallow for this patriarchy, and it didn't help that Amelia was ... very emotional, had a track record of flowing up towers on delusional ideas about narrative causality, and was friends with Lina Inverse. This got women a reputation of being dangerously emotional.

It took Filia a full week of multiple daily visits before she wasn't brushed off as some silly woman who got it into her head to play boss; they thought the corporation was run by a certain Jillas, whom they deemed a proud _human_ male. Filia had to admit partial defeat by asking Amelia to do something about it.

After a thorough barrage of justice speeches, during which Ragradia concluded they caused her nausea (damn, so this was a sugar overdose, astral edition), Julecopt was up and running.

Meanwhile, Claire had reached a sufficient control of her body to write and speak properly. She deemed this a good time to unload the eighty seven sets of fusion magic vessels from her little sub dimension and tell the appropriate parties what the plan was.

When Amelia and her fellow priestesses stepped into the main hall of their temple, they were deliciously surprised at the circle of vessels that surrounded the statue of Siephied. The miasma became better when Amelia's eyes turned sparkly and the sense of justice welled up in her. Sure enough, she had recognized what they were.

When Filia was alerted and teleported in, she brought along less enthusiasm and more boiling panic.

"Come again?"

"As I said, we need twenty of these sets around the city, kept under watch by people who get along. They must raise a shield over Sailoon. We commence the mass production of Zenaffa armors," Claire said. She tapped on the nearest set of vessels.

"I thought ... miss Lina said it wasn't ... why?"

"Let is suffice to say there may be a war no matter what," Claire said evenly. She added a smile.

"No! That doesn't suffice!"

"Miss Filia, calm down," Amelia said. "We've had trouble with dragons trying to recruit our kingdom for their war anywa. This is perfect!"

"As if that slimy hairball and the cockroach she vomited up have any good intentions for Sailoon!"

"I will need the extra protection, Sailoon can benefit from that. In the future, there will be a location that needs protecting, I can trust Sailoon will do so with the magic provided to them. Now if you'll excuse me, I have morning classes. This evening, we will have a meeting in private and amongst confidants of the temple to discuss the details," Claire said lightly.

Then she skipped off, humming as she went.

**· · · · · · ·**

Mortals could be reasonably efficient in getting things done, but they did a lot of talking before it happened.

**· · · · · · ·**

Claire could not get involved with the work itself. Once all was arranged to satisfaction, she occupied the royal Sailoon library to catch up on history. As she never destroyed anything, Amelia's request to let her be was honored.

Val appeared there one day at a random hour, at a time he should be studying too. He climbed on the chair next to her, fixing a trouble feeling and frown at her.

"Why won't you play with me anymore?" Val asked.

Without looking up, she said, "I'm catching up on all the history I missed in the past thousand years. Plus, this is pleasant. I'm still getting used to all the sensations, this work allows me to ease into it."

He crossed his arms and leaned his chin on them, kicking his legs against his chair. "You used to play with me all the time. I just thought that when you came out, we could play better. We haven't played at all."

Ah. He had expected her to keep revolving around him as his obliging playmate.

"I have responsibilities, Val."

"You're not going to die now, the devils don't even know you exist. You're not a god so it's useless. Can't we just play a little? Sylphiel says I can run around as dragon in Rygoon, cause it's safe. Come on, I promised Molly a ride, I can give you one too."

Actually, Claire had every intention to become a god again, one way or another. Not that he needed to know.

Spending time with Rygoon was appealing, but also potentially risky if the tree absorbed her. It hadn't inclined so during her —

"Claire!" Before she could respond, her chair toppled over. She had been too detached from her brain and thus, the reflexes kicked in too slowly. Her hands didn't brace against the ground as they should, she hit her head.

The pain numbed her body and belated, she cried out. Quickly she sought the neurological connections and turned the pain off.

Val's toxic miasma had taken another flavor, worry. He was at her side now, pulling her up clumsily.

"I'm sorry, I didn't realize I could kicked over the whole chair. I just wanted you to look up."

She looked him in the eye. "You should have asked. What else do you want?"

He sat back on the ground. "Don't you get it? You're my friend, right? I want you to be alive."

"I am."

"No, you're not! You don't respond to anyone like it's normal!"

She shrugged. "I am normal for what I am."

His hands became claws and dug into the floor. "You're not. Claire, please try not to be like the gods. They're heartless, you won't be that way, right?"

Oooh ...

This was one of those moments she'd read about in fictional stories; Amelia had a large collection which incidentally tended to feature lots of chimeras in love with human girls. Whether she'd be human enough to be swayed to do the emotional rather than practical thing. Such moments were described in poetic therms, of the irresistible pull of giving in to a loving gesture, breaking the cold of the heart.

She didn't think it was rubbish, it was just not for her. That Val expected things to work like that was unfortunate. However, Val was likely still necesary for the plan, and it would do to keep him cooperative.

"We can arrange for a particular hour to play."

He frowned. "Never mind."

When he ran off, she was baffled.

Then she analyzed that emotions, stored the intellectual facets for later, snipped the nagging emotion and focused on her work.

Oddly enough, there was a new emotion left, and she couldn't snip it.

Curiosity wasn't quite an emotion, it appeared. It was an instinct.

An obnoxious instinct that kept saying she needed to know more, regardless of relevance. And there was so much to decipher about mortals.

**· · · · · · ·**

The royal Sailoon bankers reported that the elves had been investigating the financial sources Filia and her family had been living on, and had caught wind of her as an associate, if not owner of the company. They were under the impression Filia sponsored Jillas or something similar.

To keep her company running, Filia whitewashed her own money. Sailoon dealt with the 'black market' aspect by considering the dragons the criminals, and thus they had no need to honestly answer any inquiries regarding the purchase of Jillas cannons.

Filia repaid them by throwing herself on whatever pro-Sailoon project she could, taking a particular liking to those that needed, ah ... a little less than justice to work out. There were acceptable ways to blackmail people in the name of the greater good, as far as Filia was concerned. Amelia and Filia were usually in line on this, but there were small fallouts. Claire weighed the options and decided that this was one of those situations Xelloss referred to as a mix of goodness in ideals and goodness in goals. It was beneficent for Amelia to uphold the concept of justice, as it gave useful structure. It was beneficent for Filia's beneficial goals to find a way in the dark to get around the rules.

Xelloss would have though the struggle of two goods was hilarious and would have tried complicating it, but Claire had bigger issues than exploring possible entertainment. See, justice and law had a thing together. One of the most vexing was the concept of possession. Primary possession was stuff one actually had power over to wield with their own body. Secondary possession was on paper and made no sense.

It would be perfectly logical to take the excess wealth of certain people and distribute it to those in need, but this was considered injustice, even though they pertained justice was more or less a form of goodness. People were dying too early because they did not have better doctors, or lived their lives in weaker circumstances.

In addition to that, Sailoon had a few hundred laws all over the place. Claire had memorized the entire law book and its history of cases, and found she had very little leeway. Even if she became an adult, she had no position and no qualifications to do anything useful.

She could sit back and kill the time with waiting, but this wasn't satisfactory. Not anymore.

Back in the subdimension, Val asked her deep questions but also silly ones and wanted to play and needed more complex help she didn't know how to give ... she had needed to ask questions to herself. Just simple ones at first. How do I help him without giving away too much? Then came life as a mortal, and questions were everywhere. She couldn't stop.

Did she want some damn jam on her bread?

_Yes._

It was a realization that plopped into her mind, and for the first time she was surprised about herself. She _could_ do more than just give answers, so she couldn't sit back without her instinct saying, _you could do more to improve the life quality of mortals. So much more. Also, have some jam._

The next question was whether there were other ways to help people.

Filia was the walking talking answer : if the law doesn't cooperate, work around it.

**· · · · · · ·**

As a mortal Claire could use spells without suffering damage to her ego. With the right combination, she could transform into her Granny Aqua form. Holding the shape took some effort, what with DNA saying otherwise, but she did manage.

She sneaked out of the palace and wandered Sailoon like this. Her eyes were everywhere, she saw within the houses and made small changes. She needed to be closer to use her magic without exerting too much power, however.

Rich men and women lost their money more often, the poor found it.

Gamblers desperate for a better life won more often, until Claire realized it made them more addicted. Then she changed tactics to cutting away their obsession.

There was a murderer in that inn, passing through the city under the guise of a business man. She danced through the alleys, slipped in through a backdoor and mingled with the crowd. He died of a heart attack, curtsy of a small blood clot. The flow made it so very easy to get into the details of a person's body.

Killing was unpleasant and contrary to her instinct, but on a purely mental level she understood a necessity for it. If this man died, his future victims would live.

He had a wife though, she was heartbroken. It tasted foul when she rushed to his limp body.

Was this the right thing?

Hmm, what if his victims of the future might've been better off dead?

Nah, not worth fretting over.

Claire went to the next inn and finished her night on better tasting miasma, curtsy of another rich guy dropping their excess money. She brought everyone drinks while snipping at addictions and unhappiness. She didn't feel like sleeping anymore.

**· · · · · · ·**

In the days, she joined Zelgadis in the back rooms of the castle and provided him with her knowledge as needed. His job was to pretend to the forgers he had pieced everything together from his travels and fragile copies of the Claire Bible, and the rest was improvised. Filia teleported her there and back again, nobody but him saw her there.

Most humans simply did not have the magic capacity to deal with a Zenaffa armor and ended up being consumed. However, the chimeras were sufficiently boosted they could deal with it _and_ had the benefit of not being able to merge with it as easily as with humans.

Zelgadis was pleasant to work with. He didn't chatter. The only real diversion was when after what seemed hours of debating with himself (and souring the miasma), he asked whether Lezo was right and there was no cure. She explained him about how the process mutated the DNA and unless one had a blueprint of the original, there was no going back. He didn't ask anymore after that.

**· · · · · · ·**

A few days into this new rhythm, Xelloss showed up during a grand wedding she had wormed into for dinner. It occurred to Claire to frame her ally through the concept of justice. The conclusion was amusingly negative and useless.

He detected the smallest thing off as he sat down at her table in the corner.

"Miss Claire, just what did I do to earn your momentary hostility?"

"A thought experiment concerning the human concept of justice."

A waiter appeared, and Xelloss took fifteen obnoxious minutes to torment the man with indecisiveness and ridiculous questions like what pollen grew within a fifty meter radius of the place where the wheat had been harvested. Claire cut it short by placing both their orders.

"You just had to spoil that, miss Claire? And just when you've made it clear we'll be talking of justice in Sailoon. I deserved a little stomach brace."

She smiled slightly, trying to get a smirk. "If I'd care for justice, I'd be out to kill you, oh thief, oh destroyer, slayers of dragons, enemy of my holiness. I'd be up on a table declaring your wickedness and spurning your company."

He quirked an eyebrow. "You had me worried over nothing? Intentionally?"

"You had yourself worried. Indeed, over nothing." She shrugged. "The past and whatever crimes are in it is a useful reference point at best, but only in regards for the future I want. I care not for satisfying some insubstantial justice sense. Don't worry."

"Oh, is that so? I'm glad to hear you've escaped miss Amelia's influence. In fact, I dare say you've gone the opposite direction. Here you are, dressed up like a hag and with a trail of blood in your wake?"

That was surprising, he shouldn't be able to access the flow ... ah, he was more observant than she understood. That was an idea she had to get used to, devils who were less blind. He had probably heard the rumors.

"I am satisfying my need to ensure as many lives live long as possible. There's some corrupt people in the palace and commerce, but it's safer to practice with small fry first."

"And the drinking?" Xelloss said, inclining his head at what the waiter brought them. A pint of beer for Claire, tea for Xelloss. The waiter promised the rest would be delivered soon.

"I think it's funny," she said after they were alone again. "So do the people here. Sometimes about a granny drinking like a sailor. Everyone's happy here, albeit by messing with their bodies. It's a quick snack."

"Oh my, are you taking after me?"

"You have a lifestyle where you are both entertained and getting your job done. It seemed useful to do a similar thing." She gulped down half of her pint. "I do think I have a handle of 'enjoyment' now. Do I taste foul to you yet?"

He shrugged. "A little. But I think you could do more."

"Well, I am not here to satisfy your ideas. Do tell me you had a better reason to risk visiting me?"

He scratched the back of his head. "I'm afraid I lost the demonsblood talisman."

Claire blinked, only because her body did so automatically. She forgot steering said body entirely as her astral form went into knots.

" _How_?" she asked at last, throwing unhappy miasma his way.

"I have no idea. It must have happened in your dimension, but I find no trace of the thief there. I was hoping you could enlighten me on what might have happened."

It wasn't as big a disaster as Xelloss assumed it would be, and it better remain that way. If he knew where the talisman was forged, he might have too good a guess.

"I know nothing. No one entered the dimension to my knowledge, nor left it. Had it been so, I would have told any of you at once."

He sighed. "Can we at least run over the options?"

"We can."

Claire spent the rest of the evening with no fruits to bear. Zelas better get on the move to make a new one.

When Xelloss was get ready to leave, he lingered.

"What is it?" she asked. She wasn't interested, but didn't want him to hang around either. He soured the mood of everyone around him.

"I'm disappointed, miss Claire. You have displayed so little versatile response to this news. I had expected more mental development."

"I see no need to indulge in extraneous emotions."

He knelt down, tapping her on the nose with a finger. "Now now, miss Claire. You are in the possession of a brain in this form. You'll develop extraneous emotions whether you like it or not, and there's far less choice to be had. You ought to have a look at the special section of the royal library. Miss Amelia stores the books mister Zelgadis gathers on his quests. Of particular interest would be the ones about neurology, instinct and sociology."

"I have bigger problems with my brain than those parts."

"Oh? You are not integrated well with the body? Is that why your emotions made a small jump at my news, and then your emotions soothed down? Perhaps you don't feel there is much reason to worry."

"Don't pursue that line of thought," she said quickly. "Anyway, goodbye. I'll try the library in the morning."

"As you say."

**· · · · · · ·**

Aww, heaven and hell, _no_.

Claire closed the book with a thump and set her chin on her hand, pouting.

The interaction of mortal souls and brains was infinitely more complicated than she had realized. She only knew souls as these impenetrable things that you could put a hole in at best, and minds were largely the result of expanding choices. She hadn't been unaware of the struggle with the brain, but she'd nevertheless considered them separate.

It wasn't. As long as a soul resided in a mortal body, its identity and personality was slave to the brain. She should have seen that coming. Garv ended up with a freaking survival instinct strong enough to override his devil nature when it left everything else about him intact. It wasn't a mystical quality of souls, it was a new instinct being forced onto him. A state of mind. No wonder Siephied and her had been wrong about reincarnation chaffing away identity.

If it was a matter of form, she was as malleable as any normal human to developing a contrary, irritating, useless personality. And it might be _forever_ , once it was burned in.

She needed to take control of herself before she ended up being an insufferable nitwit like Xelloss or self-tormenting zealot like Filia. Both her routes were already dangerously steering into silly directions.

She couldn't get around the root of trying to make others live as long as possible. That didn't mean she had to be impractical about things, or make it unpleasant."

Her nightly endeavors were nutritious and satisfactory to the instinct, but if this report about babies dying due to lack of affection was any indication, her brain might need better stimuli. She'd be of no use of she died or lost her mind.

Maybe she could combine what she wanted and needed.

**· · · · · · ·**

Opioid peptides. Niiiiiice.

**· · · · · · ·**

"Enough," Zelgadis said at some point in time she couldn't quite place.

"Huh?" Claire eloquently contributed.

"I know an addict when I see one. Hell, I experimented myself."

"Mwahhubbha."

"Stick to that thought," Zelgadis said. He picked her up, during which it occurred to Claire she'd been face planted in a sticky potion they'd been brewing. "Filia thinks it's an adapting phase, I'm about to make a point about that."

**· · · · · · ·**

It was a serious problem she had no idea how she got here. She was in a bed in an alcove, under green blankets and the wall was alive and whispering. Claire's current location was a bed in Sylphiel's home within Rygoon, built between the roots. The magic of the holy tree was so dense and all surrounding that with some skill, Claire could wield it to her ends. It didn't try to absorb her, so she didn't try to flee.

She tapped into her astral memory and found exact details of it : Zelgadis had dragged Filia out of the smith worshop, explained his suspicions. Filia had teleported her to Rygoon.

Zelgadis was off by a few things, smart as he was he only had other's limited research to go on. Claire had no drugs, she needed no drugs. Claire had figured out happy brain mode.

Speaking of happy brains, Filia was in such a state too, but less incoherent and more squee. See, Sylphiel had a fairytale cottage in a magical goodness tree. She was very loud about this while an awkward Sylphiel and longsuffering Zelgadis stood by. This was in another room, but the miasma was so thick Claire could taste it even as the tree absorbed it.

Apparently, Sylphiel had agreed to lend her home for ... experiments? Interrogation? Intervention? Apparently, Filia had her doubts about Claire's genuine status and Zelgadis was throwing in his own ideas.

Confirmation : Filia _was_ worried over her and not her business.

Filia was a good person. Too bad the world didn't function on an axis of morality. If Filia was under the delusion she was helping the one morally upstanding god be revived, that was her at her most useful.

Didn't look like she wanted to keep the delusion, though.

Claire remained in bed and let herself rest, using magic to let her brain ease, but didn't alter too much. After a while, Filia entered. She closed the door behind herself and sat down on the bed.

"Claire?" She reeked of compassion and worry. Clearly, she wanted to be rid of that feeling, so Claire expected safely ranting.

It was a funny paradox : that these mortals desired the more "true" version of compassion, when this was the selfish variant. They gained something too from making others happy, namely a few brain chemicals that caused serenity and fulfillment. The more truly selfless acts of consideration they found less true.

She opened her eyes, put on a smile and only succeeded at disturbing Filia. She was not expecting such vigor. Claire toned it down, but didn't feel like feigning sickness.

"What were you doing with yourself these past days?"

"Sorting out the chemicals my brain needed for pleasant emotions. It's easier than going through the actions of obtaining them. I need to look after my health if I want to look after the welfare of others."

"That's ridiculous ... emotions aren't chemicals."

"With organic creatures, they absolutely have a boost in chemicals." Through her open soul's window, Ragradia pushed the relevant information at her. Filia frowned, but accepted it fairly quickly. Not to the effect Claire wanted, though.

"You shouldn't treat it like that, that's ... that's not how it's supposed to work. No wonder you're stoned!"

There was a scoff from another room; Zelgadis was having coffee there with Sylphiel.

Embarrased, Filia corrected herself, "No wonder you're _intoxicated_."

"A miscalculation," Claire said.

"Why not try getting happiness the norm... our way? You'd have plenty of examples."

"My way is quicker. Besides, I wanted to see what I could do this way. Plenty of time to learn it another way."

Filia fiddled with the hem of her cloak.

"I did not expect to need to explain to you the value of experimenting on alien life. Would you have preferred I experiment on others than myself? Or maybe you'd let me dig up your new knowledge a little better?" Ragradia said.

Filia's eyes widened, she stopped fidgetting.

"That really was you? I figured I had constructed part of you ... you had no permission for that!"

"Luna did not have your permission to enter. She too learned things about you without permission."

"Miss Luna was there by accident. "

"The results are the same, why do you act like the motivation makes it different?"

Filia thought about this before saying, "Because the motivation is my best indication for estimating whether someone will misuse me in the future."

Claire smiled involuntarily. "Fair, but on a psychologically steered place such as a dreamscape, accident and intent have the intermediate state of subconscious. You'd do well to question Luna more."

Filia huffed. "I think I should question you first and foremost. You had me assume you really were a little girl."

"I didn't lie—"

"Don't!" Filia slammed her hand on the bedpost. "Don't think I'll buy that. Xelloss makes an art of lying by giving half truths. The truth is a person's _right_ , not some sort of incidence."

Little things in her brain conspired to bring out something new in Ragradia. Anger. She didn't know the facial expressions or body language for it naturally, but it influenced what she wanted. Just out of curiosity, she let herself act on it.

"You want the greatest truth I can give you?"

Claire planted a hand on the nearest wall, requesting the tree's power. Rygoon answered. Claire closed her eyes and switched off all extra functions of her brain, her focus solely in the astral realm and the souls nearby.

Into Filia's mind poured the structures of what Ragradia saw in the world.

Sailoon was very heavy on the axis of chaos and order, or rather ... crime and law. Not quite the same, and it only became fishier once Lina was involved.

Filia was heavy on good and evil thing and had very little respect for the law.

Zelas and her spawn functioned more on an axis of fun versus dull and practicality versus uselessness. Or perhaps, all in the name of meaning, their own personal meaning. The fact that they believed in meaning at all would drive regular devils insane.

And then there were gods, those who just functioned on instinct and went with the flow ... just because that felt natural. There was no greater meaning.

The truest axis of this world was existence versus oblivion. There was the axis of chaos in its modern definition, versus order. Law versus crime was a detailed facet of it exclusive to the organic social lifeforms, as was good and evil. Devils had law and betrayal built directly on the lowest axis. Dragons had all the varying ideas of the greater good. Others would call them evil.

There wasn't any absolute, but the belief in such an absolute could benefit.

Only one absolute existed. Had she learned about the Lord of Nightmares in her studies at the temple?

Ah, yes. The great void, the arch nemesis of existence, lord of all devils. Less of a person than it was a primordial force. There was no grasping Her. Ragradia could only represent Her as _beyond_ everything they knew.

In this framework of axis and forces so much greater than small lives, she placed herself and Filia, tiny as they were. That knowledge she held for a long time.

When she opened her eyes, Filia had collapsed aside of the bed. Her vitals showed signs of seizure. Likely, she had overtaxed her brain.

 _"I've been doing this all wrong. You're right, you're not really a child,"_ Filia told Ragradia in thoughts, right before locking her out.

After a few minutes, Filia pushed herself up onto her knees. Without looking up, she asked, "Who are you?"

"If you apply mortal concepts of personhood on me, I am not Aqualord Ragradia. A person is the sum of their past, I am merely a copy of the final moments of that version's life. I am aware that Aqualord Ragradia was less caring for mortals, but I am not like that, because I am only the thoughts _I should have taken care to let everyone live as well and happily as possible_. If I had done that, we would never have been so weak as to suffer defeat. We would have stopped the war before it became a weakness. That idea dominates my existence. I am an idea given life."

"But you consider yourself an extension of Ragradia."

She nodded. "Yes. There is one line of existence between me and the entity born from Siephied. I might even refer to myself as Siephied, were there be no siblings to make that terminology confusing for mortals. It does not matter much to us, these concepts of individualism. Magically, I am obligated to have an identity and my magic matches the stream of Ragradia. So I am."

"But you do need unique identity."

"Yep," Claire said.

"And you value life of yourself and others."

"Don't mistake that for ethics or compassion. It's unfortunately the core of my remnant, since I am reborn of godly _thoughts_ ," she said with a sneer. "If I as Granny Aqua was all of Ragradia, not merely this, I would have joined forces with Garv, killed Lina and helped him destroy Lei Magnus."

Filia looked and tasted so disappointed that Granny Aqua had seconds thoughts about her cold delivery. On the other hand, Filia was neck deep into astral business and it wouldn't do for her to foster any delusions of virtue in gods.

"Listen. The innate social instinct that you organic creatures call, which may drive you to compassion and friendship and justice, let's call it Ren. I do not possess Ren, but I have come to a position where I distinguish I need facets that usually come from Ren. You might say Ragradia crafted an artificial Ren by accident and it is imperfect. In the grand scheme it may be detrimental that I am driven to ensure as much life as possible. But I cannot betray it. In the end, that means you and I serve the same purpose. Can you accept that?"

"Yes," she said softly. Filia folded her hands on her lap and looked straight at her. "That means we need another way to interact. How about we strike a contract?"

When Filia had made a brief contract with Xelloss, there had been a hint of amusement behind it, along with a dose of anger. For Claire, she had only a severe seriousness.

"Speak."

"Miss Luna and I never managed to complete our research. Also, I think I'm overdue with dealing with Val's potential. I want help with that."

"You don't have the capacity to fully understand how minds stick together. You've only ever been yourself," Claire said.

Filia huffed, crossed her arms. "My son could become a world destroying monster, and I'm told you have helped him unlock his memories. You _owe_ me."

"Owe you help to wield your kenosis as a weapon against gods?"

"You owe me help for my son's sake," she said. "I will risk my safety for you, and include you in my family as far as it is acceptable as a risk. You'll help me become more magically dexterous so I can protect my family _and you_ better."

Claire nodded. "Alright. You have a point that it would help Val. I'll throw in all the spells created in my name."

"I'll have the papers done tomorrow," Filia said, now smiling mischievously.

"Oh, and a little bit of advice? Blink more often, alright? It will help you pass for human."

"I can try," Claire said, and she blinked, and smiled, and tilted her head to the side.

Filia smiled back, and her miasma gradually became tasty again. "Good. Because tomorrow, your Life Management lessons will start."

**· · · · · · ·**

For reasons of compassion, Filia would not tell Val that he had once been a mass murderer.

For reasons of practicality, Claire didn't tell either of them Val still had useful information within his head. If Luna picked up on that little detail, she'd get a clue. Not that there currently was much to pick up on. Claire hadn't been able to subtract the useful information during their time in the subdimension. When they had devised the plan, they had taken it for granted that Filia could bring along an obedient little kid eager to please, one they could just ask to provide. He'd been that way three years ago. Now ...

Val arrived by evening, accompanied by Zelgadis and Filia. She heard them with organic ears through the open door, since there was an echo in the subterranean root maze.

"A space for what?" Val asked.

"We're going to see whether anything weird happens to your mind when you transform. If not, we're going to train you as a less messy warrior," Zelgadis said.

Val stopped dead in his track. "Is that why Molly and the others couldn't come along? You want me to do something that dangerous?"

Claire wished they'd get a move on it.

Sylphiel led them to an inner sanctum, where she explained the room before leaving. It was a magically fortified room where she practiced her Drag Slaves without destroying anything; the tree absorbed the excess energy. It would not hold up to a transforming dragon, but any loose energy would be guided away safety. No rocks dropping on anyone.

There was so much talking before they finally got Val to transform, Claire was getting itchy in a whole new way. Normally she'd be heading to the city by now, getting the instinct's nagging out of her system.

Val aged up alright, got his wings out, chucked a few energy blasts and Filia suffered through two fearful deja vu's without anyone else noticing.

Ah, trauma. A useless thing. It smelled truly foul, though. She shut her channels tightly and refrained from dismissing it outright as a triviality. Filia put clear effort into pretending she was fine when her son was around, yet it was something that demanded expression to get out of the system.

Ragradia linked to Filia's mind, her subconscious provided a clue : the particular trigger was his face when he got really caught up in what he did. Looked like a warrior. Had been that face behind which lived the person who had tried ripping apart the world and made her hand start it all. Claire concluded she would find trauma annoying to be around, but could not imagine what actually experiencing that foul emotion was like.

When Val laughed in a way that would be described as somewhat fanatic in Amelia's novels, that did it for Filia. She lost composure. She took a rasping breath, two steps back and trembled. Just briefly before she got it under control. The fear had been seen, however.

"Mom?" Val asked. "Mom, don't cry."

"I'm not crying," she said, raising her head so he could see she told the truth. "I was just a little startled, that's all."

She sounded too nervous. Claire decided to change the mood, or at least tried.

"You're getting better at controlling it, Val!" Claire said, clapping her hands together. "You'll get better yet!"

He turned to her. "How? It doesn't make sense that I can do this, right? I saw the training of the Sailoon armies ... I recognized the ideas behind it. What am I controlling, Claire?"

"He figured out he knows too much. You tell him?" she asked Filia.

Filia and Zelgadis exchanged a look before Filia slowly started, "Probably ... well, we think you're acting on the memories of someone named Valteira. Val, you were not magically frozen as an egg. You saw the start and the end of the genocide of the Ancients ... and ... "

Zelgadis took over when he noticed Filia stopped. "You survived because you were turned into a chimera. When you were purified of other part, you regressed into the state of an egg."

Val's miasma was edging into poison, the bitterness of sorrow and sting of fearful confusion. It cut short the gratitude Filia felt for Zelgadis a moment before.

"What was the other half?" Val asked.

"A devil," Zelgadis said. "You weren't a pleasant person."

"Did I hurt mom?"

There was no right answer. The silence alone told Val something was up. His telltale weakness, his right arm started twitching into draconic form. "Tell me!"

Zelgadis sighed and said, "Yes. More than once."

Ragradia tried very hard to not pay attention to the miasma, but found that even if she didn't swallow, she couldn't get away from knowing it was there. By the Lord of Nightmares, if any mental structure of Valgarv remained in the boy, it was the capacity for misery.

Val jumped up and ran for the door, a choice Claire recognized as incredibly typical of certain novels Amelia favored. Just run away from the source of guilt. At least it _was_ guilt. Valgarv had a lack of it, from what she had heard. People with guilt were easier to keep in line for her goals, as long as the chinks were worked out.

"Absolutely not!" Filia teleported before him, braced both hands on the door frame and gave him the look of a mother who would tolerate no disobedience. A little of the effect was lost as he was taller than her, but but he stopped. "Val ul Copt, you are not running off to sulk somewhere!"

He hesitated, then he picked her up and set her aside. "Sorry," he muttered. "I need to think."

And off he was, running and tripping.

Zelgadis stepped aside of a dejected Filia. "You're going to have to tell him some time what he did."

"He _didn't_ do that. Val is not Valgarv. You shouldn't have told him that!"

Claire decided to pipe up, "There is the possibility Valteira's identity structures remain, but not necessarily Valgarv."

Filia wasn't listening anymore, she was out the door already.

"Identity structures? What's _your_ opinion, Ragradia?" Zelgadis asked.

"You mortals have a much too glorious idea of identity, as if it were a constant singular unit like the soul. Memories of Valteira are easier to drag up and he can use them, but that means nothing. I contain memories of Ragradia, yet Ragradia would scoff at what I have become and see no point in pursuing my path," she said.

"If you had the choice to become like that first Ragradia again, would you take it?" Zelgadis asked.

This stumped Claire. Of all the opinions she needed to form, this was one that she couldn't draw on her brain for. "I don't know."

Zelgadis sighed again, almost like it was a quirk rather than a lung function. "You might want to tell Filia about the Valteira thing."

"Why?"

"Because you've landed in the river of doom for asocial people. You will be assimilated by the Lina friendship circle, whether you like it or not. You're in Lina's shadow now, the humiliation has only just begun."

Claire tilted her head, confused. "Xelloss said similar things."

Zelgadis gave a wry smile and walked out the room. Claire stayed put and focused on sending Filia a vocal vision.

_"Your son acted like Valteira. Why do you think Garv singled him out? Valteira had a reputation of rejecting the pacifism for the Ancient Dragons and was one of the few to fight. Garv knew him by name because everyone did. Xelloss has different ideas about your son, and I hope he doesn't act on them. Valgarv defied the Lord of Nightmares and that's something Xelloss cannot let go."_

Ragradia realized a second later that was a bad thing to say to someone whom she needed to get along with Xelloss.

Well then. She was right to suspect her drive to ensure the long life of everyone would cause compulsive stupidity.

Filia responded very blasé, though. In fact, she might be insulted. Said she already knew Xelloss was dangerous, thank you very much. And her soul's window closed again.

Nearly half an hour later, Val returned, being dragged at his legs by Filia and Zelgadis. Mismatched wings stuck up, but were not in a panicked flutter. Claire assumed that despite his mood, he had given up the struggle. The moment Filia let go off his legs, she darted to the door and closed it. Zelgadis didn't let go till she had cast a sealing spell on it.

When Claire walked to his front, she couldn't see his face. It was buried below wild mint hair and black dragon arms.

Filia turned around, hands on hips and said, "Val, we are going to talk this out whether you like it or not!"

The mumbling from below the black and green didn't sound very interested. Filia pushed away a surge of irritation and hunched down before Val. She laid a hand on his head, just between the claws.

"Val, please," she said gently. "If there is any chance you went on a massacre because you took a cue from those memories, it needs to stop. I've forgiven you, you don't need to doubt that. But I didn't forget. You have a lot of power that you need to learn to use responsibly. A warrior's skills don't mean you have the mind to be a warrior just like that."

He finally looked up. Filia's hand rested where his horn would have been, had there still been devil in him.

"If I try more, maybe I grow up to be like Valteira. If he's so violent, I don't want to. I don't like seeing you sad."

This placated Filia, worried Zelgadis and confused Claire, at least until she figured out the catch. If Val did it only for Filia, not for himself ...

Zelgadis pushed her forward with his leg. "Be useful."

"Eh ... Val, you probably acted on muscle memory. Your former life is gone, but your dragon self is not, which includes neurological functions such as reflexes," Claire said. "You inherited that from Valteira, but not his strategic ability. You suck at being strategic. Valteira wouldn't have survived so long if he fought as stupid as you did. So now you've gotta learn that. You won't hurt Filia and the others unless you choose to."

"Okay ..." he said in a tiny voice that even Claire saw was ridiculous on him in this form. He sat up, crossing his legs. He might want to stay smaller than Filia.

"What about Claire? What's she here for?"

"She needs to learn to be a person better, just like you. Neither of you are properly dealing with your impulses and emotions, but in very different ways. You should help each other, okay? Claire's really pragmatic about everything and knows about memories and mind, and you know a lot about being alive. I'm going to oversee you, but it's from each other I want you to learn."

"I get it!" Claire said. "You are the actual teacher, but we're meant to bond so you frame it like that. I read about it in sage Ingu—" She got no further as Zelgadis knocked her on the head.

"Who gave you permission to go through my collection?"

"Your fiancé."

Zelgadis gritted his teeth, muttering something about not being officially engaged. Claire didn't get the difference, but he clearly wasn't into criticizing Amelia's kindness.

Filia whirled around, next thing Claire knew she had a finger pointed in her face. "And you. Don't psycho analyze my intentions when you hardly know yourself. You drift through life without any passion or taking notice of anything. Miss Sylphiel offered you healing when we arrived and miss Amelia had a lot of questions about Sailoon in the past. You barely acknowledged them."

Claire stared at the finger and knew she was about to give the wrong answer, but Filia wasn't dangerous, so she said it anyway. "It wasn't relevant."

"The people around you, especially those trying to help you, are _not_ irrelevant. Yes, you've seen more details of the world than even the oldest and wisest dragon. But you haven't look through eyes. You see the clay of the pot, but not the concept of the art that made it that way. Maybe you won't need this as a god, but you're a mortal now. You can't survive this world if you don't understand it."

Claire frowned. "How would that make _you_ a good teacher?"

"You don't go to the priest to learn how to stop drinking, you go to the guy who quit the bar," Zelgadis grumbled. "Believe me, Filia knows all about being a sanctimonious, condescending dragon with the emotional stability of a spring."

Filia threw him a look, pressed her lips to a thin line, and once more killed her oncoming rage (without magic). Somehow, she turned it into glee.

"Right. I'm an expert, so you're in good hands and ... what?"

Zelgadis was staring at the finger she'd stuck up as she spoke. "You've been hanging out too much with Xelloss."

Now she gave her finger a look, just briefly. She clenched her fists and looked elsewhere, unpleasantly embarrassed.

Claire was just a tad curious as to why, and a tiny bit amused.

Damnit. The way things were heading, sooner or later Xelloss was going to get what he had always wanted. She'd be curious and _like_ all sorts of stupid little things ... damn, now she was calling things stupid.

Still, she did not have enough passion to be resentful to that development. It wouldn't hurt to _develop_ a personality that could silly people. Happiness made for good food, and if Xelloss was to be believed it was an excellent _experience_ as long as he didn't have to put it in his astral stomach. On top of that, it would allow for more natural interaction with mortals in the future. Especially if Val was going to spill anything about machines.

On top of that, it satisfied her instinct if she helped Val become a better warrior, for the sake of future lives he might otherwise take. She'd still do her nightly clean ups, but she'd have an easier time dealing with Val.

And maybe her own brain. Time to decide.

"Alright, Filia. I'll learn."

There'd never been any question about who she was, she had no crisis or doubt. But if more people would ask, she'd answer she would be the best of all versions. A more useful Ragradia, a livelier Granny Aqua, and she was a child called Claire who had a selfish reason to protect the world and knew it.

So, she transformed into an adult to match Val and lied, "Val, let's do this, I bet it's fun!"

Who knew, one day she might mean it.

**· · · · · · ·**


	14. Xelloss's Knots

 

 

**· · · · · · ·**

Devils didn't love existence, or so was the intent. Scholars could waste hours on debating whether concepts existed in the same way as matter, and whether attachment to concepts constituted a love for the subjects of the concepts. Devils did prefer certain concepts, they had to if they wanted to keep an identity.

Preference was the first step on the spectrum of enjoyment, a spectrum known as having a positive opinion of something.

To Xelloss, theorizing about that was long in the past. He and the Beast Monarch had gone beyond concepts and now liked actual things. Trivial ones even. For Xelloss, the most prized triviality was tea. This _should_ have fit the court of Deep Sea Dalphin. Dalphin's home was built in the stately old countess style. Pearls were dominant and there were as perspectively much fountains here as hidden pockets in Lina's cape. The chairs were made of coral, cups consisted of shells and the curtains were made of seaweed. Sometimes, a shark floated through the rooms.

Xelloss might have appreciated the aesthetic of the place purely on base of its absurdity, if not for her choice to exchange air for water.

When the other guests had remarked on his foul mood, he resort to word tricks to justify it without dropping inconvenient truths such as " _because I enjoy the existence of tea and this interior decoration interferes with this_ ". To be contrary, he sat on a cabinet and feigned discontent miasma was Grau, simply by having his eyes open in his direction.

Grau, ever the pumped up pope with gold mitre and over-jeweled crozier, coped by pretending his mass of robes needed constant adjustments. He had so much of them the chair he was on would need a map to escape. Hating Grau was easy, he looked like he wanted to be as opposite as Xelloss as possible.

Sometimes the fool cast a pleading look to his left, but Dynast Grauscherrer ignored him. He was basking in the quiet reverence he got from being the sole retainer in the room, which obligated the generals and priests that had gathered to bow their heads.

Dynast came as the same man with long black hair and royal armor as the former Dils king, he had never bothered with a unique projection, copycat that he was. The shallow moron hadn't even realized copying the Lei Magnus situation would not work on Luke, while failing to notice the power Milina was. His denseness was Xelloss's main reason for hating him.

In comparison, Raltaak and Rashat were just uninteresting. Garv's leftovers now served Deep Sea Dalphin, each standing on one side of the door she was expected to enter through. They still held their manly Garv approved projections, but Raltaak had added fisherman's clothing and Rashat's armor had taken on a shell motif and marine colors.

The miserable lot waited for the Beast Monarch and Dalphin, who had called them here for court. Social relationships carried no pleasure to devils, so they only bothered if need prescribed. They didn't do chit chat or catching up. So, Xelloss was more than a little worried what Dalphin and his liege were doing.

When they finally arrived, the brought along a tense atmosphere. Dalphin entered first, her true form writhing on the astral plane while her humanoid projection whisked by lightly. She took the seat on the richest sofa on the other end of the room, her new general and priest taking position by her sides. Folding her hands on her lap, she smiled at those already present.

The Beast Monarch was in her travel form, and discarded all ceremony. She plopped down on the sofa next to Xelloss's cabinet and draped a leg over the edge. The contrast brought Xelloss some amusement. Dalphin floated through the world, just gently there, while the Beast Monarch demanded attention.

"Let's start already," the Beast Monarch said as she snagged a little fish out of her hair.

"Let us," Dalphin said sweetly. She whirled her hand to conjure up four (waterproof) pages, which she let loose in the current.

The Beast Monarch snatched hers before it had halted, narrowing her eyes at it.

"What are we supposed to do with this?" Dynast but Grau gave him a longsuffering look; the content of the papers were very easy to grasp.

Dalphin folded her hands across her lap and took the friendly expression humans used to be patient with slow children. If she'd done such a thing before Fibrizo's likes she would have been in a world of pain, but Dynast didn't notice the condescending intent.

"These are an analysis of full power Dragon Slaves that indicate a third piece of our lord Shabranigdu has been destroyed, followed by an analysis of Lina Inverse and her average ability as a sorcerer. Then we have an analysis of the power of the Black Deities and others defeated by Lina Inverse. They do not add up."

"Yes ..."

The Beast Monarch growled, a sneer drawing her face up. "What she is trying to say, lord Dynast, is that ever since lady Lina Inverse started walking the world, big names have been dropping like flies. Fibrizo, Garv, Hylaker, Rixfalt, Dugradigdu, Volphied, Scherrer, and two, possibly three pieces of Shabranigdu. Poof."

Xelloss felt she wouldn't mind an elaboration, and he just had to add it, "That's 4 big top tiers in thousands of years, and then Lina's ten years offs 9 top tiers. We're an endangered species, lord Dynast."

"Who gave you permission to speak out of turn?" Dynast snapped.

He bowed his head in false apologetics and stole a look at his liege. She flicked her hand and looked at a random painting that depicted a kraken devouring a ship, obviously disinterested in correcting the behavior of Xelloss. His spectacular skill at being annoying came from her, after all.

"Oh dear Dynast, there is no point calling our Zelas out, she has always been the wild child." Dalphin sighed theatrically. "Now, let us return to our dire topic. It _is_ certainly noticeable that around the same time as Lina Inverse goes underground, dragons start moving all over the world. We even have rumor that in the Kataart mountains they managed to create fusion magic vessels. These are hard to verify because they have excellent Zenaffa armor and cooperation, and even mid ranked devils have gone missing there. All in all, I believe there is an organized effort to strike against us, Lina Inverse and her unusual qualities being a key ingredient."

Xelloss's curiosity was peeked. Lina was obviously not dead, but it would not be logical for him to know that, so he said, "Perhaps she simply died and they became nervous?"

"Would one like lady Lina Inverse simply die?" Zelas said, cutting off the need for anyone else to point out the obvious.

Xelloss scratched his head in embarrassment. Yeah, that was not his best cover. "From what I have seen, no."

"Lina Inverse has unusual qualities," Dalphin said. "I myself had a taste of it when she snatched the Knight of the Aqualord right out of my hands. I learned from this what perhaps might be why Lina Inverse holds such strange influence over the world. I suspect the woman is akin to the Knight of our great Mother."

There was a tense silence in the room and Xelloss itched to stop himself from confirming it, let alone pointing out this meant Lina Inverse deserved their respect.

"It might be a coincidence. Most of these events were sought out by us in response to her defeat of Rezo Shabranigdu," the Beast Monarch said. "Hellmaster targeted her as a result, which was followed by the gods creating a prophecy that harnessed her against Dugradigdu. Dalphin then decided to, _against reason_ , attempt to wield Lina's good fortune in her own favor. Her encounter with Luke is the only true coincidence that we know of. If she did destroy a third piece, we don't know enough to base judgment on it."

"Indeed," Dalphin said. "But such things are exactly what I mean with special, dear Zelas. She always survives. Is it such a stretch to assume the gods might want to use her again?"

The Beast Monarch blew out a puff of smoke, not impressed, but Dynast became uneasy. His emotions betrayed it as much as his body language, he twitched and looked at random walls. The sound of his armor was forgotten again. "She's weak. She can't be that much of a threat. She needed a trick to defeat me."

"Yet survive you she has, dear Dynast, by some providence and her own mind. We cannot wield her. I say we train ourselves to regard her as no mere human, so we may attack her across the astral plane," Dalphin said gently. "Won't that be a useful option?"

"Then what?" Dynast asked.

"We track her down. For this purpose, I was hoping our Zelas would order her priest to trace her down. He is most familiar with Lina Inverse's magic, after all."

The Beast Monarch snorted. "It happens to be so I hate lending people _my_ priest, Sea Monarch. As much as any of us, might I add."

"Oh? That certainly would explain your sour mood, though I retain some wonder at your shock about my little surprise," she chuckled. She twisted her wrist, unfolding it to reveal a red shard. She held it out for all those present to see.

Well now, a demonsblood talisman.

Xelloss knew at once, seeing as it was the very same one he had lost last month.

"Hmmm ... our Zelas nearly panicked when I revealed this, yet the beast priest tastes ... ah, let me see ... confusion, surprise, ... is that shame? ... no ... hmmm ... I do wonder why it's so startling that I would have this."

"I told you, I panicked because if there are demonsblood talismen just lying around your ocean, someone might be trying to bait us. There's always a chance one day Lei Magnus will become a chimera and suspicious things have been going on in Kataart," his liege said impatiently. She didn't need to feign disgust.

"So it has," Dalphin said with a hollow gentleness. "So it has indeed. You certainly are a quick thinker, Zelas."

Xelloss knew his role : now he had heard this, it should shock him too. He couldn't fake shock, but he had shame to work with. "Oh, so that's why my liege was worked up. I should have realized."

"Hmmhmm," Dalphin said. With those pitch black eyes, he couldn't tell whether it had the desired effect. Her emotions remained even.

Deep Sea Dalphin was testing them, not unlike Fibrizo when he had called the Beast Monarch out for Seigram defecting. Fibrizo had been confident Xelloss couldn't possible backstab him even if there was a treacherous bone in the Beast Court (he had been so wrong), but Deep Sea Dalphin's power was not as vast and she exercised greater caution.

Xelloss tilted his head, giving his liege a quizzical look. She didn't give him the go ahead yet.

"What possibly could refrain you from acting on what we have established is a common threat?" Dalphin asked.

"Lord Dalphin, I have only one priest and no desire to lose him to a trap," she said coldly. "Your explanation for where you found that talisman is severely lacking."

"Alas, since your priest has worn out the word secret, what else was I to say than that a little bird told me?"

"No," Dynast grumbled. "That actually won't do. Tell us where you got that thing. Rangort's taken over Megiddo, you can't have gone there to get the Ragna to make a talisman. There is no other place where the walls of the world are brittle enough and it shouldn't be in your ocean."

The subtlest smirk played on the face of his liege and creator. She had effectively used Dynast to turn the suspicion from herself to Dalphin. To cement it in, she feigned compliance, "Sea Monarch, Xelloss will seek her out, but should anything happen that impairs my servant, you will pay me back."

"I suppose if it must be," Dalphin said wistfully, without actually feeling wistful.

His liege gave him a nod. Xelloss took a knee before Deep Sea Dalphin.

Lina had destroyed the demonblood talismen in her battle against Luke Shabranigdu, which had been Xelloss's primary method of tracking her. He was certain he had informed the other lords of this. Maybe he could pretend not to find a trace of her.

"Descend into deepest layers of the astral plane by using this as your anchor. If she is indeed the chosen of our Mother, then you should be able to find her footsteps in the purity that layer. We will keep an eye from you from up here."

Cancel that plan, he most likely would find such a thing.

"It is my honor," Xelloss said as he took the stone. He managed to drag up some feeling on honor by thinking very hard about the favor the Lord of Nightmares had bestowed on him eight years ago, and what Lina might mean to Her.

Honor, another one of those emotions that fell on the long winded branch of positive yet intangible concepts in existence, a particular branch of appreciation. None of the devils ever commented on its positive nature when experiencing it. Think too hard about it, realize the paradox too deeply, and they might just suffer for it. Not him, however.

Slayer, enemy of all alive, bandit killer, dragon spooker, and to Xelloss one of the most appealing humans in the world. She was easy to understand, uncomplicated, but she was smart and her raw chaos was wonderful. He could only guess the broad strokes of her, but he was good enough to steer her where he wanted without dying. He was the only one who had survived playing with her.

He'd be working to hide her even if she wasn't involved in his liege's plot.

As he touched the stone, he let go of his projection and slipped into the channels of worldly energy. Through this dark anchor, he could travel the world's flow of energy even across the astral plane, allowing him to move as fast as if a human had created a summoning circle. Flow movement was otherwise off limits to devils, since the flow was a part of the _order_ of nature.

The astral world had twenty eight subtle layers. As a realm of thought, this was less like landscape as it was a space of projection of will and thought.

On the purest planes the murkiness of the top levels was replaced by what could be called a golden glow. There wasn't truly light or darkness here, but those who saw the world through the mind's eye, largely determined by the physical world, it was gold to them. Devils went mad with agony and longing as they touched Ragnarok, the horizon of the world. A doubtful border without true definition, just like the shore of the sea isn't built of anything but sea and land.

Xelloss could think of himself in his human form and would 'see' it. A golden whirling mass below his feet, its movement solely the property of the world that lay upon it. There was a two dimensional layer stretched in all directions, a thin black only visible in the distance. Xelloss smiled, or at least projected the sentiment at their Mother. He didn't actually know how much she could observe here. Had she made her presence known he would have paid respect, but otherwise he did not : it'd mean he would never stop bowing, as did the mad ones clawing as Ragnarok did.

Ragnarok was where Siephied had passed into the Sea of Chaos. Wasn't it hilarious that gods could pass it at will, while devils needed convoluted schemes and mental fortitude to deal with it? It was a cruel irony that the way to suffer least was to indulge the most in that which caused their personal hell : turn to existence. Fortunately, Xelloss had a healthy appreciation for irony.

Xelloss remained in the layer above Ragnarok and indulged in the suffering of the withering astral beings. It gave him a good fill while wandering across the world. In the meantime, he delighted in the clarity while traveling on the talisman's power.

Logically, a fully ignorant Xelloss would have sought out her home at one point. In Zephyria he found he couldn't fake not noticing a trail : footsteps burning in golden flames stood out sharply even on the deepest levels.

"Xelloss, I receive the scent of Chaos. You have passed by something quite similar to what Luke Shabranigdu used for the distorted space in Sairaag. It is without doubt our Mother's power. Follow it."

Dalphin's voice jarred him into alert. "I understand."

Carefully, he hadn't _said_ he would. He'd follow it, but couldn't be held accountable for how he did it.

Other traces followed Lina Inverse, visibly only because she reflected on them. One of them was constantly lit, he suspected it belonged to Gourry. The other was less familiar, but then he recognized the bouncy outline up front. Ah, that would be Naga the White Serpent.

The golden trail never weakened with time, it only grew stronger at times when Lina did something that affected the flow of the world on a larger scale. In other words, when she affected destiny.

He took care never to stray close to the valley of the Ancients. Filia had teleported them all there and away again, Lina had left no traces going there. Any trace would remain hidden as long as he stayed out of the area. Her presence there would raise too much questions, there would be traces of Shabranigdu's third piece.

When he found an unfamiliar trail, he followed it. It led to a fork, one leading to the Demons Sea and the other in the opposite direction, north-west. He followed the latter, suspecting she might just have revisited the Ruby Eye System. Whatever the case, if Lina had anything destiny changing to do in the direction of the Demon Sea he didn't want Dalphin to know. It could be harmless, or it could be related to his liege's plot. The Ruby Eye System he knew was of no interest to the devils.

He had nearly reached it when Dalphin ordered, "Follow the other trail."

"If I may ask, lord Dalphin, why?"

"She is approaching the Temple of Chronos. We know she has employed it before, whatever trail led her there is old."

That ... didn't make any sense. What was Dalphin after?

"Perhaps she returned to use it again? The trail is very strong here," he suggested tentatively.

"No. Go back," Dalphin drawled, just the first edge of irritation in her voice. "It is strong because she went there shortly after casting the Giga Slave against Fibrizo."

He disagreed, but arguing about it might look too desperate.

"Should I have your lord give the command, beast priest?" she said.

"No," he said quickly. "I will go. I am merely hesitant to stray into a zone of the gods, should her trail lead away from the land."

She didn't bother replying, and so he went.

The stronger the trail went, the more clearly he caught an human outline burned irrevocably into the astral plane. The reflective light on her companions became stronger too.

As he passed into the astral side correspondent to the Demons Sea, he became aware of a pinch of light, a pillar that lined up with the staff of the world, but only within the mind through which he approached this. It was the scar of Dark Star's gate. Here, the reflection of Lina became so strong that he could see her. It was golden like in the Kataart Mountains, but still just another scar on the world. She was laughing as she looked over her shoulder as the intangible Gourry and ...

There was an old echo of something she told him, "... _will be alright_ ... _trust me_..." and then Gourry smiled and Naga laughed.

She laughed eleven times.

_What?_

The Lina outline had considerably more sore expressions after this. Only the original Naga had a real reflection, but the other Nagas were undeniable : they caused exactly the same lashing from Lina as the core Naga did. In the physical world, this place corresponded to an island in the Demons Sea, they might have met up ... but for what?

Xelloss stopped here, watching the echoes of the past play out again and again as he tried to understand what was going on. Just how much was he jeopardizing his liege's plan and Lina's safety?

"Keep going," Dalphin ordered. He had no choice. Someone ignorant of any plot wouldn't object to finding out more, especially not one as notoriously curious as he was.

In the demons sea, the trails died abruptly. There didn't turn back, but that wasn't something he felt like reporting.

"It appears I found another dead end," he simply said.

"Stay there. We will come soon."

Xelloss took this as excuse to let go of the talisman's power and project into the physical realm. It was time to investigate and foolproof what was likely an emergency.

The cold dark sea rushed below him, and the black night sky whistled with wind above. There was no moon, but the stars were so clear he could still see with human eyes. This was the island where the gods of the Black World had built their machine.

The floating constructions had collapsed into a little island amidst the crater. Xelloss floated over to it, finding it constructed of the remainder of the bottom of the machine. Someone had brought it down here and submerged it, concealing it as a normal extension. As he walked over it, he could tell it was hollow inside. It was slightly hotter than it should be, but the energy wasn't magical.

He poked around the island, stopped projecting for a while and reappeared inside. It had the same levels as before, but he could also see trace remnants of the walls from the center piece of the device. In the center of the largest hall, the glassy field from the bottom piece lay. The two pieces had been combined roughly, like scraps thrown together. The giant needle extensions were cramped against the walls, the biomechanic matter weakly reflecting the green glow from the center.

Xelloss ran his hands across the walls, probing and waiting. He was curious at the source of the energy, but what he found first was startling.

There, a trace of magic, embedded in the walls to keep astral resonance in. It was a shield against scrying, the same that the devil lords used on their homes to keep the eyes of the gods out. This particular shield was all too familiar to Xelloss : after all, his liege had cast it.

No longer bothering to understand the machine, the sped across the entire interior till he found the anchor. It was a cursed object, a simple stone of sealing that lay amidst the rubble. He only noticed due to familiarity. Without hesitation, he destroyed it. After that, he could only hope the other devils hadn't detected it from the outside, should they have already arrived.

He sat down just above the glowing green. There was a pentagram engraved on the surface, combining the idea of first and second constructions. Curiously, he also noticed the outline of a hexagram. The symbols of the gods and devils, combined?

There was no question his liege was involved in the reconstruction of this thing. There was plenty of question of why, and Xelloss allowed himself to loosely dwell on this without any concrete speculation. He had never doubted his liege's goals, and had ample evidence to assume they were carrying out the will of the Lord of Nightmares. But he certainly could ask whether they were doing it the right way.

The defeat of Fibrizo had caused a stir in the devil ranks. What if the Lord of Nightmares did not want to end all of existence? Beyond fear of punishment, for She had ways to make destruction a fear for devils, what did it mean to what they were created as? Xelloss had tasted the fear of everyone he told what he'd seen.

_"This isn't what I wanted."_

For Xelloss, all had come and passed. But to the others, it was a very frightening story not only because of the world being spared — they could blame this perhaps on Lina — but because of Gourry. The human who had changed the mind of the Lord of Nightmares herself. A simple mind like Gourry had no complex reasoning or challenge to pose to the Mother Of All Things. He just loved Lina a lot, and _this had mattered to the Lord of Nightmares_.

A true horror story for any devil.

The Lord of Nightmares had spoken to him too. He had received a wish granted as all others had, he had learned Her capricious nature. She had personality. So he didn't worry too much about the Beast Monarch's intentions. When he had told his liege what he had witnessed that day, she had broken out in laughter. Not a mocking sort, but that of a person who understood better. That had been when she had started acting on their beliefs. Little aid to the Dark Star prophecy, strange orders to encourage Sailoon to promote chimeraism.

So enraptured in this sudden mystery, he didn't notice Deep Sea Dalphin until she manifested right at his side. She almost had him jump.

"I must agree, this _is_ a _curious_ discovery," she said in a sugary sweet tone. "Anything you can tell me?"

Hmm, what did he have to work with to explain why he felt impressed and somewhat giddy? He couldn't lie outright, it was contrary enough to his chosen persona that it would be unpleasant to do, and someone as sharp as Dalphin would notice. Good thing he was a master of misleading truths.

"I believe I saw outlines of Lina Inverse and her protector head this way, accompanied by a group of about twelve people. I suspect they were sorcerers, given their actions. Dragons might be able to recraft this place."

Dalphin didn't need to know all those others had been Naga The Serpent, who perhaps had a thing for golems and needed no dragons to build anything. But let Dalphin assume there was a team of highly skilled dragon magicians at work.

"Ah," she said.

She held out her hand, the talisman in it. There were black scorch marks across her arm, she had injured herself by using it to travel. He feared she might wonder why _he_ wasn't affected, but she never brought it up.

She recreated the anchor she had in her home, now a pathway to bring the others here. They arrived without injury, but she suffered more. Not to say the rest enjoyed the trip. Too flow compatible. It occurred to Xelloss he needed to feign discomfort, or do something to cheer himself up.

Grau, weakest of the group, sailed out of the flow and slammed face first into the green field. This might have been because Xelloss had tripped him. Maybe.

While the others gave Grau a look, Xelloss rushed to stand by his liege's side, who had a discriminating lack of curiosity and surprise. He himself was brimming with the required emotions. Hopefully, the rest didn't come close enough to detect there was only one source.

No worry, Dalphin had other interests. Forming a droplet of magic between her hands, she blew it into the air. It expanded into a cloud of dim blue light, illuminating the subterranean space to its ceiling.

Xelloss started to recognize things. Broad patterns and structures that came straight from drawings Val had made. He cracked on eye open at his liege, who rewarded him with a slightly smug look.

For her and Lina to have gotten this far in rebuilding it based on concepts alone ... or perhaps she had been leaving the child clues to inspire ... or Rangort could have entered his dreams to inspire the boy in the required ways ...

His liege narrowed her eyes just slightly, not looking at him. He tasted of light displeasure.

Oh, right. Xelloss had been busy building up amazement. That emotion was off limits to devils. Ditto for entertainment at anything that wasn't a plan working out or a full stomach. He was going to have to think very hard about something that wouldn't thrill him like this nifty rebellion machine did.

He decided to mentally categorize the many ways Filia could say _garbage_ with just a look, and while he was at it he analyzed whether there were different expressions for _sewer priest_ and _cockroach_. Perfect memory made this a time consuming enough a task that he could build up sufficient displeasure.

This was just as well, because Dalphin returned from her inspection and declared she had found traces of godly magic.

And somehow, she was positively thrilled.

Oh shit. His liege shared the sentiment, and it was only covered by Raltaak and Rashat doing the same.

"It appears the gods themselves are plotting something with Lina Inverse, hand in hand. They learned from the gods of the Black World. To their misfortune, we are about to claim their hard work while they are busy elsewhere," Dalphin said.

"What exactly would this hard work be?" Dynast asked as he knocked a metallic hand on the nearest construct.

"This is an artificial Megiddo," Dalphin whispered, enthralled. She stood on her toes, gravity neglected as she twirled around. "A force that summons not the souls of mortals, but the very essence that ties all devils and gods. I thought the knowledge was lost when the gods of the Black World left, but off course, Lina Inverse is _special_." That last she spoke with a soft viciousness, like a snake under the grass. Xelloss exploited his closed lids to roll his eyes at her. Lina was unique, but there was a point her abilities were prone to exageration.

Dynast blinked. The Beast Monarch puffed out smoke. Grau fiddled his thumbs. Rashat and Raltaak exchanged a look.

"Oh, such dull responses," Dalphin said. "Do you not realize? We have at hand a method to find the pieces of our lord and summon them to us!"

The Beast Monarch yawned. "Nice as that would be, may I remind you the absolute damage to our ego that we suffer if we must rely on tools? Look at your arms, merely from using the talisman."

Dalphin clasped her hands together eagerly. "Oh, no concern. I shall bring in those poor souls who started me a cult. I do so like to string along hapless fools who believe me an angel. They have been eagerly waiting to be of use to me. All we must do is ascertain how to activate this machine."

"We may certainly try," the Beast Monarch said lazily. She flicked her cigarette away. "Just hope Lina won't check in on her Har Megiddo."

**· · · · · · ·**

In the bloodiest crevices of Wolfpack Island, Zelas howled. Xelloss was about to return with news that might make it worse, or not. Carefully, the priest stepped around the writhing devils who hadn't escaped her outbursts. The trees flowed with the blood of broken wombs. His liege was wasteful tonight.

She projected her true form in the physical world, minus the armor she reserved for combat. With only her claws, she tore open the fleshy trees and relished in the physical destruction and pain she caused. Sort of. She was too frustrated to truly relish. The miasma of pure devils was not as nutritious as astral beings, but no less readable. So strong was their bloodlust, even mortal could detect it. What he tasted here was enough to send every animal fleeing; it felt suicidal approaching her in this state.

Xelloss barely stood out amidst the gore, but there would be no world where his liege wasn't aware of his presence. He took a knee as sharp eyes settled on him.

"Report," she growled.

"As I gather, Deep Sea Dalphin has stored the talisman within her island."

For unfathomable reasons, this calmed his liege a little. The fur that stood up flattered and her ears shot to the front. "Has she sealed it?"

"I believe so."

"Good. That means she does not plan to use it in investigating how the machine works. Xelloss, the talisman should not come near Har Megiddo without our supervision. You may stand."

He nodded, stood and said, "Doesn't this put us in a bind, though?"

"We can craft a new one, though it will take time," she said. "My concern for the talisman is that others could use it. The damn thing is, there is no credible way I can reclaim it from her without being suspicious."

She ruffled her bloody feathers like an owl, then folded them on her back. Hunching down before him, she tapped a giant claw on his head.

"As for you, ensure you fail a non-relevant but important mission soon, so I can pretend to Dalphin I'm pissed off about that. I'm not likely to lose this mood any time soon. Too much unknown factors. Someone must have planted that talisman in the sea for her to find, someone who can go unnoticed by both you and Ragradia."

"I understand. I have a few Claire Bible manuscripts I might let some humans get away with. Would that do?"

"For all I care, you let them find out about Zenaffa armors. The more wedges as we can put in a potential war, the better." She spoke all this through gritted teeth. Xelloss was grateful he wasn't at the receiving end of her rage. For all her versatile emotions, she was always tempered by blasphemous little things such as reason and meaning. That was why the least significant devils died as she vented.

So, he wasn't too unnerved to ask, "My liege, is this construction the Tel al-Metaliom that miss Lina asked me about?"

She growled, "Yes. The name was a safeguard that was unfortunate necessary. Faking emotions is difficult enough as it is, but your reputation for not telling outright lies comes in handy and so it comes down to that. We have Dalphin convinced we don't know about any of this and we need to keep it that way. As long as you don't know what I, Lina and Ragradia are doing, you can be my shield of curiosity and confusion."

"Will I be doing so any of these days?"

"For now, I am avoiding the others ..." She took a deep, needless breath and dug a claw in the dirt. "Sometimes I dare wish I had a choice on how my mind functions. I envy the gods for what they get to decide over themselves."

He didn't understand that wish. If one wasn't oneself anymore, they wouldn't really be there to have that wish, which rendered it moot. But she did not explain, and he did not press.

She stood up abruptly and set a tree on fire. The oversized fetuses that grew on it writhed and shrieked, Xelloss nearly got a high from the nutritious agony.

"Eat up. You shall need it. In the morning, you will go to Sailoon and protect lord Ragradia's remnant in case the machine activates. It will do ... something. You must use fusion magic for a shield."

"As you wish," Xelloss muttered, trying to keep his mind coherent in the sudden influx of yummy. "I shall inform lord Ragradia of the developments. May I tell miss Filia as well?"

"No. Only true players of our effort may know all, so keep the knowledge to lord Ragradia."

He nodded, not thinking twice of the order, but there was a tingle in the back of his mind that told him Filia wouldn't take it well once she realized her position. That same part said this was to be prevented. Nice people who break might just grown horns.

**· · · · · · ·**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Ruby Eye System is from Slayers Light Magic.


	15. Val's Fears

At reasonable times (by which Filia meant every other evening and no, this was not overkill) the whole Ul Copt family teleported to Sylphiel and Rygoon. It became a steady rhythm of fleeing from a city full of humans side eying beast folk, and seeking out places to experiment. For Filia, it was her lessons with Claire, for Jillas it was Sylphiel's fireproof training hall; there were plans for another chamber. Along with Elena, Gravos also had cooking lessons from Sylphiel, but nobody was supposed to talk about that.

Val, Palu and Molly spent their time exploring the vast maze. With their sharp nose, the vulpen could always find their way back, but for Val it was a game to get lost and find his way back. Finding new tunnels, treasure hunting (Val suspected Sylphiel hid things just for them) and wild flight were other favorites. Val could control his transformation a little better now, so he could become large enough to carry the cubs and small enough to make it fun.

Today, the game was firemouse hunting and incidentally, Claire was off early (Val was sure Filia was worried they'd hurt them). Palu had sniffed them out, but it was up to the dragon children to catch any for a closer look. Firemice were odd little winged mammals, like fairies were tiny winged humans. They glowed too, which had an extra appeal to little kids.

Claire had caught on how to grow wings for this occasion. To be honest, Val envied her for the ease with which she did it. Whoop, just like that, she had these blue batwings with a pink green fade out because she wanted it. Ancient knowledge, sure, but _still_.

Val felt a little better when he realized that despite the ancient knowledge, she had no idea how to actually fly. She'd always been astral and gravity hadn't been a real concern. Val caught a firemouse long before she had figured out how not to fly into walls.

"Got one!" he hollered.

Molly was at his side first, pulling the feathers of his tail softly. He knelt down and opened his hands a little. Molly bonked his head with her own, smiling. As he bonked back, he let the firemouse go. Molly chased it, but Claire lingered. Then she bonked his head too and ran after Molly.

Baffled, Val rubbed his head. "Why'd you do that?"

Surprised (maybe), Claire looked over your shoulder. "Integration into local social atmosphere. Molly gave permission."

"Eh, yeah ... but Molly's tiny and soft. It kinda hurts when you do it."

"I'll adjust my caliber next time," she said with a shrug.

What was a kalibur anyway? He would have asked, but Claire probably would dump a boring adult explanation. Getting information was a lot more fun if he could just have the bible plant it in his mind.

He couldn't make heads nor tails of her most of the time. Like right now. She was climbing the tree root even though she had _wings_. It was really slow, Molly got to the top before her. Why do things the mortal way when she didn't have to act? Or was she afraid of flying now?

"What are you confused about?" Claire asked. "You taste of confusion."

"Huh? How can I taste of anything? You're not even touching me." Val's imagination ran away with the image of Claire licking people and declaring their moods with her doctor's graveness. The feathery lady in his head buried her face in a hand.

Claire reached a horizontal piece of root just after Molly, who slipped into a tunnel there. Withdrawing her wings, she turned on a heel and sat. "You should know this."

Val shrugged.

"Doesn't miss Filia always say Xelloss eats our annoyance?" Palu asked as he caught up. "If she's a piece of god, I bet she can do that too."

Claire nodded. "I can eat both emotions and physical food. The former's more educative."

"Val always knew about the emotion eatin," Palu said. "Did you forget?"

He scratched his head. It wasn't like he hadn't known, ... he should have known ... didn't all fall together ... nah, there was nothing to talk about.

"Hey, Claire, does this tree also taste like anything to you? Is that why you all like it so much?" he asked.

"It's not like food, but it has resonance with spiritual beings. The tree eats _all_ miasma, not only the emotional type. It is like the ultimate expression of the flow of the world," Claire said with sudden animation. "It is a holy life. And you're not answering my question!"

"You," he said. "You confuse me."

She tilted head head. "Why?"

"Are you a kid or not?" Val asked.

She was about to answer when Molly popped up behind her. "Are you a god or not?"

"Sort of," Claire said. "Why?"

"If you're a god, does that mean you would to kill cone thingy one day?" Molly asked.

"Sure, if he makes it necessary," Claire said nonchalantly.

Beat.

_— It shouldn't be easy to kill people who once were your allies. —_

"Why'd you bring up Xelloss anyway, Molly?" Palu asked quickly, shifting on his feet. Val was glad to notice he wasn't the only one creeped out.

"Cause he's back there. I thought he was afraid."

The kids didn't need more of a prompt to follow her. Val and Claire had to squeeze through the hole, but they did manage in wingless form. All the while, Val avoided eye contact.

In the next big cavity, Xelloss lay in a messy heap. He turned a pained head when they arrived.

"Ello there," he said, somehow still smiling. Val yanked him up by his cloak, forcing him into crosslegged sit.

"What are you doing here?" Val demanded.

"Well you see—" He got no further, as Claire headbonked him.

"Hello," she said happily. "I got my own annoying trademark gesture now. Copyright to Molly."

"I see ... " said a befuddled Xelloss. "Anyway, I've been looking for you. Deep Sea Dalphin had the you know which and coerced me into leading her to you know where. She brought in her cult and they are now trying to figure out how to do you know what that I don't. Soon. I am to shield you with fusion magic."

"Damn," Claire said monotonously. "Are you alright? Zelas must have been furious."

"Indeed, but this time she had braced for it. No inconvenient outbreak of rage in the wrong place. Deep Sea Dalphin was still suspicious, however. My liege the Beast Monarch has returned to Wolfpack Island to cool off. It is almost certain there is another master in the game."

Palu tilted his head. "Val, do you have any idea what they're on about?"

"Nope," Val said, slowly shaking his head.

"Val! Claire!" That was Filia's voice, echoing down the hall. "Kids, where are you? Miss Sylphiel senses a strange shift in the trees energies, there may be ... wait ... aww no!"

Half a minute later, Filia, Elena and Sylphiel entered the small cavity, tripping over roots in their hurry.

"Yes, he's back," Filia said with a sigh. "Miss Sylphiel, meet the beast priest, Xelloss. Never trust him." Hands on her hips, she marched to Xelloss. "What are you doing with my children, corrupting them again?"

"I would never try to steal your thunder," Xelloss said. "After all, you're doing such a fine job corrupting them yourself."

"Oh, I don't think so, miss Filia is doing a wonderful job with the children," Sylphiel said with so much faith and sincerity Xelloss scooted away from her. Val, Elena and Filia both chuckled; Xelloss didn't do well with people who brimmed with good will.

"Ahem," Xelloss said. "Miss Filia, it might suit you to make a public appearance soon. Julecopt is a very suspicious name, you know. In particular, you might want to plant a rumor on where that name comes from. There is another matter, but I'd prefer we discuss it somewhere outside this tree. It doesn't like me."

"We're planning something to deal with that during the gala in two days," Filia said. "Whatever you're here for better not interfere, Xelloss!"

"I may hope it won't," he said before disappearing.

"Is this usual?" Sylphiel asked.

"My life hasn't been usual for seven years," Filia said with a look of resignation. "Will you please show us out, miss Sylphiel?"

"Off course."

With a quick pace and no complaints, they made their way out. They emerged on a thick root that grew into the lake, the wind carried the sound of reed to them. Claire clacked her tongue and the wind reversed, stirring the water so Filia had a clear teleportation beacon.  
  
Filia picked the girl up, as she usually did; in Sailoon Claire allowed her to play the doting mother. Val wanted a little of that as well (icecream might happen), so made up his mind to join them after all.  
  
He unfolded his wings and launched himself at Filia, who startled. Claire slipped down, dangling by her small arms. Val sat on Filia's shoulders, claimed the pointy hat for himself and put his arms around her head.  
  
"Coming along after all, Val?" Filia asked with a warm laugh.

— _You don't have to worry about things like weight and gravity anymore. It just takes a little concentration to think them away. In fact, it's best to make gravity a natural feature of your projection, because it's so easy to forget ... —_

If he did forget, she'd be a bloody smear on the ground. Val tensed up.

"Val, dear, you're holding a little tight." Quickly he loosened his grip and forced a smile.

"Sorry." His heart beat so fast he blurted it out.

Why'd he think about her dying?

He tried to think something happier, but a chill on his wings distracted him. When he looked over his shoulder, he met both of Xelloss's eyes. His smile was fake, behind it predator ready to pounce.

Filia noticed his movement and looked back as well.

Xelloss had his eyes closed by then and all his attention on Sylphiel, who spoke to him cheerfully.

Filia realized a little too late what it was about. "No, miss Sylphiel, don't invite him!"

**· · · · · · ·**

Xelloss, off course, ended up with an invitation because Sylphiel was whole heartedly convinced he wasn't that bad. He would have come anyway, but as Filia said, it was the principle of the matter.

Val, for some reason, ended up strange pieces of dream that night.

**· · · · · · ·**

— _a devil came to kill me? —_

— _ship is headed to the quadrant of —_

— _we'll always be on the run, boy, until we fix this world ... the system's all wrong, you know ... —_

— _check the circuits and see whether you can —_

— _there's a thing to having minions ... don't bother with devils, they'll betray us ... get some mortals —_

— _the armies will be deployed at the nearest quasar point and demolish the server —_

— _No, let me help you! I can restrain myself, I won't get in the way if you need to negotiate with them!_ —

— _I give up ... won't you? Aren't we both in pain from this existence?_ —

— _It's all wrong, this world. Why can't we even know why it is as it is? —_

— _wings as black as night —_

**· · · · · · ·**

The sky was stark morning blue, without a single cloud. Blue was a merciless color of heat, but why he didn't know why he saw it like that. Deserts ... ? No, this day was cool, and the sky was unfathomably lonely. Not a single bird save one lone dove turning circles. Nothing lived. The impression of journeys across the stars pulled at his mind. Beyond the cold dead blue was a worse emptiness.

The reality was that Val lay on his back on a flat roof in the palace of Sailoon, waiting for Claire to finish nightly work with Zelgadis. But that meant so little under the weight of all that nothingness.

He closed his eyes and tried to pull up any memories that belonged to the ideas. The fringes kept slipping away every time he grasped them. For a long time he tried anyway.

When a shadow fell on him and a sting ran up his spine, he opened his eyes again. Xelloss was before him, blocking the weak sun. His arms were full of scrolls.

Val groaned. "Don't you have someone else to harass?"

"Not particularly. I was rather curious what you were doing here."

"Meditating."

The devil had the nerve to chuckle. "You? Meditating? How peculiar. You never struck me as the type to do anything that ... cerebral."

Val had no idea what cerebral meant, but if Xelloss liked it he didn't want to.

"Hmm. What do you want?" Val asked.

With overacted movement, Xelloss dumped half the scrolls on Val. "Be so nice as to lose these somewhere near the trading district."

"Pay me," Val said as he crossed his arms, flatly refusing to even get up.

Xelloss scratched his cheek. "You _are_ taking after miss Filia. Very well, what would you have me pay you?"

Val was stumped. Filia always had something clever or useful to ask in return. Val didn't really know anything like that. Plus, Xelloss might just turn things back on him if he worded it badly.

Any chance to think about it was killed when a blob of blue and white hurled itself at Xelloss from the left. Now Val sat up, just so he could see the mess better.

Xelloss and Claire were a mess of cloak and batwings that poked holes in the devil. Claire's human center was furiously grabbing the scrolls and shredding them with claws. She destroyed about five before Xelloss tossed her away. She sailed into the nearest tower.

Val almost sprouted his wings, worried and ready to help her, but Claire didn't even fall. She just pushed off the wall and flew back.

Indignantly, Xelloss stood dusting himself off with one arm, the other holding the remainder of scrolls. "Rude," he muttered.

Claire landed before him, looking up sternly for a moment. Then she turned to Val. "Destroy those things, will you?"

"Okay." He gathered up the scroll and considered whether he'd grow claws and shred them. Claire had her wings out, so maybe it was safe now to grow his own. No, wait, she was hiding them again and there was a ripple in the air. Glamor?

He vaguely recalling being able to incinerate things ... some far away memory ... He held out his hand and tried summoning one of those green spheres he knew would work.

"Miss Claire, you have wings?" Xelloss said, scratching his head. "I do not recall Aqualord Ragradia projecting them."

"I'm being creative. You might have heard of it."

"Eh, it's nice to know you are expanding your identity."

"Such is a necessity when my associates are potentially double crossing me. Why are you planning to spread Zenaffa knowledge outside of controlled environments?"

"Oh my, your flow is that perceptive? Well, I'm sure you recall our little predicament. I have been ordered to dramatically fail another mission, to give my liege an excuse to be pissed off at all times. So I figured, I let knowledge from the Claire Bible leak into the world without any copies of the Claire Bible involved. That way, I can honestly tell the other lords I failed, even though I did my best to keep all copies of the Claire Bible out of human hands. I call this the Eternal Fun Bible," he said proudly, shaking the remaining scrolls.

Claire kept the exact same deadpan expression throughout the entire rant. "Screw up something else. I can't let you do this. Not when there is a risk some hapless fool will be consumed by the armor."

"Aww, now, miss Claire. I'm sure you understand I am incapable of disobeying my creator."

"You've bent the words plenty of times and Zelas gives you that kind of leeway. I on the other hand don't function like that. As many must live as possible."

"Well, too bad," he said and warped away.

Remaining were withering, soaked bits of the paper he had been writing on. Xelloss was back in a second, and Claire was actually smirking at her little success.

"You do realize I'll just write it on something else, right?"

"You do realize you are obligated to stay around me for an undetermined time, right?"

Val groaned and let his face drop on the roof. "Xelloss, can you be around any dragon girl without starting a feud?"

"What feud?" Xelloss said airily. "We merely have a conflict of instinctive needs that we mutually understand. A feud would indicate personal emotions of resentment. I'm sure you know the difference, it's what I have with miss Filia."

Val looked up just in time to see Claire nodding sagely, shadows against the rising sun. "Yes, purely mechanical conflict of annoying instincts that neither of us can escape."

Astral things were creepy.

The only one who wasn't a shadow against the sky was the feathered lady. Laying around Val were the remnants of scrolls, withered in green.

**· · · · · · ·**

Morning passed into an irritable afternoon, which had been reserved by Amelia for ball gowns and etiquette. Everyone meant to attend was to try on their clothing, which included not just Filia, but also Val, Jillas and Elena. Gravos was determined on not coming, but they'd talked him into trying something out anyway. Zelgadis suffered the same fate. The two of them sat near the walls of the showcase room and grumbled quietly.

They would have been the damper on the mood, if not for the latest arrival. This torrid affair just wasn't calculated for Xelloss. When Filia had gone to change in another room, she had put aside her hat on a dresser. Xelloss 'accidentally' sat on it. In his true form.

Val idly wondered why Xelloss had only done this after seven years.

After Amelia had explained the horrified seamstresses that there really was no reason to fear the whirling black cone that had just speared a piece of furniture — "I hope nothing important was in there!" — she had tried getting Xelloss to wear one of the ceremonial Sailoon outfits. Xelloss had gone nauseous at her perkiness and blurted out a quick explanation of astral physics. During this time, Filia had time to quickly emerge in a bathrobe and shout about her hat.

Gravos grumbled something about how weird hairy critters were when it came to dresses, at which Jillas started on the virtue of dresses that complimented beige fur, and Val decided it was time to disappear into the men's dressing room with the two of them.

Val was pretty sure he didn't need to fear accidental transformations anymore, but he still insisted on a dark cloak. Filia worried very much, so maybe that would make her feel more at ease.

Nowadays, there was a new undertone to her concern. Filia had worried about wanton transforming in the past, about how he might accidentally crush a kid he played with, but this time was different. Ever since that thing with Azonge, she was a little ... not less friendly or kind, but it was like that fear was more frequent, more strong. Val was more puzzled than ever, not because the fear existed ... but because she had known. The way his mother made it sound, killing was a horrible thing and she was sad but not surprised.

The men's room's door opened slightly, and Filia shouted, "Everybody decent?"

"Yep," Jillas said.

She shoved a black cone through it and tossed some clothes after it.

"But miss Filia, the show room is for everyone!" the cone whined.

"You're astral, walls don't exist for you. You're going as far as possible from the lady's changing room," Filia snapped.

"As an astral being, I'm asexual, inorganic and extradimensional. I swear that nothing I might see wou—" the cone started, and got no further.

"So what? There is a thing such as private space and said space _expands_ when people are changing clothes. Most people in there only know you as a man, and everything that entails. Why don't you go feed on jerks, rather then hardworking innocent people, hmm?"

"Jerks by whose standards?

"Ugh, not now. Just stay out, or our tea deal is off! Oh, mister Jillas, you look great. That color will match Elena's outfit well. Val, darling, why aren't you changed yet?"

At this point, the tailors recovered from their shock over the cone devil and ran for it.

"Eh ... I tried some but it itches ... wait, don't run away!" Val said quickly, not really interested in the terrified humans but needing an excuse that wasn't _I was brooding about what you might think of me and what you won't tell me_. Xelloss could tell if he lied. "I'll go fetch them, okay?"

He caught the tailors and dragged them back, but he didn't figure out much about himself or Filia. At least she didn't notice anything.

**· · · · · · ·**

The hat saga had a sequel that evening in Rygoon. Filia had transformed into full dragon form to help Sylphiel with creating a new room for practicing magic, Val and the rest of the family helped out by dragging aside roots. They couldn't harm the tree, but Sylphiel could coax it into giving permission to rearrange itself.

Xelloss chose this time to appear with a substitute hat. Or to be more specific, with things that allowed him to be the hat.

All of the workers froze to look at the nutty devil, who had an dragonsized half circlet with antenna over his arm, and broken teapots with large red gems crudely glued into them hung from each end. In his other arm was a bucket of white paint.

"Hello, miss Filia. It occurred to me my liege's crown is very similar to yours. Due to familiarity, I was able to construct it."

"I don't want —" Filia started, to no avail.

Xelloss phased on her neck, placed the circlet on her forehead and turned into a black cone. He pinched himself under the falling bucket of paint, turning himself into a mixture of black and white. Twisting upside down with the circlet at his wide end, Filia did indeed have something resembling her old hat.

There was just no way to not snort at this, but most did an admirable job not laughing out loud. Filia's expression was ... just no.

" _Get off_ ," Filia hissed.

"But how else will I make up for the loss of your hat?" Xelloss whined, hobbling back and forth a little.

"Get off without making a further scene and I'll consider it even!"

"Oh, you don't need to make things easy for me."

Claire sighed. "If Siephied could see what the ancient war has come to ..." She twisted her mouth oddly, then her face lit up. "Ooh, I get it now!"

"Get what?" Val asked her. She hopped down her work spot and sat down close to him.

Whispering, she told him, "Why they keep annoying each other. It's about their ideals and pride. I didn't put that together till just now, when it is purely about pride. Normally, other emotions muddle things and I'll be the first to admit I'm no expert at reading people. They're playing each other, for better or worse. Now's worse, this tastes foul."

Everyone was playing each other. What else could they? The Lord of Nightmares played the entire world.

"Want to go help mom?" he said, because he felt like playing too.

Claire nodded happily, clasping her hands together. "Let's try creativity."

She even got the expression right. It looked a little fake, like Xelloss sometimes looked fake, but Val knew it was real.

At least, he thought he did. He didn't actually have any evidence.

**· · · · · · ·**

The night of the royal gala came almost unnoticed amidst the racket of Filia and Xelloss. Compared to them, the sea of colors and curtsies was forgettable.

Jillas and Elena were early arrivals, Filia and Val were to come a little later. Mostly, this was due to last minute changes in what they'd look like.

One of the things Filia had picked up from Claire was advanced transformation. While still limited to a human body, it allowed her to make changes to her body by messing with melanin and weight. Val himself had dark mossy green right now and looked seven years older, but wasn't skilled enough to change his face. His job was to accompany Filia and pretend to be her younger brother, who wasn't seven and account for any rumors about the boy with her.

Any rumors about Sailoon's sudden magical prowess shouldn't be accompanied by rumors that made any dragons or elves think Filia and her family had moved here. Amongst the best lies were mundane truths behind mysteries like an overblown rumor about the mysterious owner of the suspiciously named Julecopt turning out to simply be a smart human woman. (Xelloss was downright miffed he wasn't needed for any of the secret keeping.)

To Filia, this task was a calling turned dream. She mingled with the crowd, with dark blond and only slightly pointed ears, dressed in spring and forest green. Slightly elvish, but everyone could see she was no more than a human who happened to be skilled in trade and was filthy rich. That done, she went ahead to make sure everyone knew the genius behind the weaponry side of her company.

After so long in Kataart, Val had become used to his mother as a fidgety, nervous lump of pink and yellow. Before that, she'd only been a shop keeper, even if he knew of faraway business empires. Here in Sailoon, she was radiant. Everything about her attitude and posture was Filia at her peak, but only to those who knew her. Others would see a calm, dignified and jovial woman who naturally became the center of attention, whether anyone liked it or not.

She played the crowd like she played her customers : friendly when needed, making covert threats and blackmail in the face of those she disliked. Val had never been interested in her business affairs, but now he saw it, it was frightening for a reason he didn't get.

Everyone's playing because that's how the world was made. A game.

This was a very boring game, though. Val stayed at his table and stuffed his face while projecting disinterest towards anyone who approached him. As far as he was concerned, that was good enough. He'd been a playful seven year old in Kataart, a moody teen was just fine for this occasion. He didn't want to deal with these snobs.

He was just lamenting that Claire got out of this when she showed up. Claire had morphed herself into an age to match him and wore light blue and green with complimentary pink, mirroring her dragon form. No expert at creativity yet. Xelloss trailed behind her, conspicuously wearing the clothes Amelia had insisted he don. He blended in but still managed to look suspicious.

"Why don't you don't you just stay somewhere safe with Claire?" Val grumbled at him. "Not that I mind that you're here, Claire."

"It occurred to me that it would be detrimental if miss Filia accidentally slipped up and revealed her true nature," Xelloss said, wagging finger raised.

"He just wants to play with Filia when she's in her optimal environment," Claire whispered. "And I'm hungry."

Claire held out her hand to Val. He looked at it, confused.

She gave a sideway nod at the dance floor. "I want to eat there, where people have the most fun. Dance with me?"

Some women behind them muttered about poor manners, unaware of his sharper hearing. He shot a glare at the eversmiling Xelloss and let Claire lead him to the dance floor.

For three dances, they acted the cute clumsy teens amidst the adults. That was enough for Claire to decide dancing held no particular appeal to her any more than it did for Val.

It was also enough time for Xelloss to arrange a dancing pair to accidentally stampede into the group with whom Filia spoke. Incidentally, this involved Filia's face meeting the floor.

Xelloss stood by all too innocently as the drunken dancers were disentangled from Filia by servants. He feigned utter surprise when she turned to him the moment she was free.

"Honestly? More smacking my face into rock?" she said, pointing her closed fan at him.

"You do seem to have an affinity for sediments, I don't see what you're so upset about," he said with a shrug. "If one is to assume I caused this."

Filia shared a look with her newly squired posse.

"We happened to see you tampering around with the wine. It is your fault the duke drank the wine he could not bear, surely. He _never_ loses control _that_ badly while dancing," a lady with tall hair said, nose upturned. "Clumsy as the poor man may be."

Claire gave an odd little smile and pulled Val away from the dance floor and towards Filia and Xelloss.

"Claire, what are you doing? The dancing was boring, but better than them fighting, right?"

She continued pulling him along. "This is for better. It's a thing they do for ... what was the phrase ... for shits and giggles. It feels like something I can eat yet I shouldn't ... oh ... it's _emotional junk food_ ," Claire whispered. She looked troubled by this, but after a beat she said, "I shall have more."

Social situations were to Claire like a recipe was to him. A shiver ran over Val's back, even as Claire's godly presence made him feel good.

Unaware of anything wrong with the girl that came to stand at her side, Filia swishes around dramatically. "Ladies, I'd like to officially introduce you to my old acquaintance, Zelbi Garubaga Turashu. I owe him the generous stipend that helped me along my way in the business. He is a giving man, even if at times he does the most unfortunate things. There are days when he just has to dig around in the garbage for his food, so I've taken it on my generous back to occasionally provide for the poor man. Do forgive his win crime, I'm afraid he loses his mind at times."

This elicited laughter from the group and shaking shoulders from Xelloss. Filia directed the entire group to a nearby table in the secondary dinner room, followed by a grudging cone thing and last, a smiling Claire. A count and two dukes joined them as well.

Lacking anything else to do, Val followed. As he caught up, he heard his mother and Xelloss bicker under their breaths. They lagged behind just for this purpose.

"Oh, you _wish_ I was upset," she muttered, twirling her fan around her finger by the loop. "Your continued efforts to relive bygone times only testify of your pitiable inability to move on."

"You overvalue your entertainment status, as always. Not the only erroneous view of your value that you have."

She lightly tapped her fan on his arm. " _You're_ the entertainment tonight, cockroach. Let's see how well you fare when you're not just covering for yourself but me too."

"Oh? Intent to make me squirm or bore me to death? I'm afraid I must disappoint. After Milgazia, my tolerance ceiling had been forced much higher."

The entire group took seat on a circle of embroidered cushions, intersected with small tables on which wines, cakes and elaborate bottles with pipes stood. Contrary to the dance hall, the atmosphere here was spicy and thick with incense. More like Sailoon's native culture than the central hall.

Some of the ladies with poofy dresses had trouble sitting down here, but managed with a laugh anyway. Claire joined them in this effort, breaking the ice with friendly, empty words. Val took a seat at her side on the same massive pillow and tried to look gloomy and uninteresting. There was enough space between the pillows one could whispered without being heard, but most conversation was theatrically loud, so he couldn't quite escape.

"I'm afraid I failed to understand, duchess. I though this was a gala to celebrate the advancements of Sailoon," Filia said with an ease Val knew to belie a serpent. "The vulpen was a vital contribution to this."

This earned an all around scoff, covert or not. Jillas and Elena were still in the main hall, but Val knew that even if they were here, they'd be ignored.

"Well, you have to admit they are smart," a lady with too much eyeshadow said. She was one of the humans who had become a chimera, albeit only half blow demon, foregoing the golem part. "Not that this changes much about their bestial nature."

Filia gave Xelloss a sideway glance, just briefly. "I might agree, but is such truly their fault?"

"It's actually been proved that aggression can be heritable," Xelloss said. "A certain scientist wished to breed domestic foxes not too long ago. He did so by disregarding the aggressive ones in favor of the docile for breeding. A dozen generations later, he succeeded. Such is natural selection. And we all know how that works on the greater scheme, now do we, miss Filia?"

Filia nodded sagely. "Considering all the genocide, murder and starvation that human culture forces on them, off course they are predisposed towards aggression. It's only the aggressive who survive to have children."

This was total nonsense, Val knew. He had heard Filia rant for all his life on how ridiculous the stereotypes were. Sometimes with a suffix of how dragons deserve the title of rampant violence more.

"Well, it was just a theory," the count said, shifting in his seat a lot all of the sudden. Off course, now it might be their fault, they suddenly weren't eager to support genetic evil.

— _Smoke and blood and iron in the air. The village was burning, he could see the smoke from miles away. Another slaughter party by humans. Wandering around, he spotted a survivor ..._

_He pulled the arrow, but didn't help him up. He just waited for him to stop growling._

_One of the great things about the more social beast folk was that they were loyal. Loyalty was what had allowed them to survive the brutality of the humans, banding together. He didn't care for humans, but beast folk were acceptable enough. They fit him._

_He offered him revenge and life, and from the growing taste of gratitude, he learned quickly this was a keeper. —_

Val snapped awake, back in the spicy smoke of the lively palace, amidst the kind of people who had ordered that genocide.

Claire was poking him incessantly. "Val, did you drink too much wine? You blacked out completely."

"Huh?"

"I keep saying, it's poor protocol that the Sailoon court allows such youngsters to attend. The princess is no more child, there is no need to keep up that silly rule," someone muttered. Val didn't bother figuring out whom.

He was positive he'd remembered Jillas ... but Jillas hadn't been alive hundreds of years ago. Valteira had not been around a decade ago, right?

Maybe Claire knew ... yet he didn't ask.

There was nothing to talk about.

The count stood up at this point. "Maybe we should have a word with the genius himself. I suppose there may be exceptions. Ladies, gentlemen, please excuse me."

Val frowned. "What'd I miss?"

"Fun," Claire said blissfully. If anyone looked drunk, it was her.

Filia leaned over to Claire, taking the pillow the count had vacated. Xelloss moved right along, skipping her vacated pillow and sitting on Filia's. Well, more like reclining behind the little table and making short work of the cookies. Distance enough from her to retain dignity, but close enough to whisper.

After rearranging the many folds of her dress and claiming tea, Filia whispered, "I can't believe you spent ten minutes being useful. Maybe all the happiness is damaging you, that you'd be on my side by choice."

"Now now, you'd think I'd refuse helping you on principle when such a juicy fool is before me? Tsstss. I believe I proved already I'm quite capable of cooperation for the greater good."

Filia looked skyward. "As if you did it for the greater good. Humiliation is your second favorite flavor. That count was ripe for the plucking."

"Oh come now. I'm not all about food. I genuinely enjoy seeing you try to undermine the authorities. You're very good at chaos, whether it be physical or social."

Filia's hand clenched around her glass, causing hairline cracks. "Any compliment from you is akin to an insult."

"You can do better than that, miss Filia."

"Yes, I have about five laserline replies to your implications about my chaos, but why would I share them? We never agreed I'd do my very best to entertain you." Behind her open fan, stuck out her tongue.

Just like that, they were back to needling each other. Claire looked no less happy.

Val was just about to claim a turkey leg and munch it down in the most anti-etiquette way he could muster when it happened again.

— _"Are priestesses wont to eavesdrops?" He reeks of amusement. The dragon just fell for it, never realized he probably lured her here._

_"Never mind that!" she snapped. —  
_

Val couldn't ever imagine them truly being spiteful towards one another ... so why did he? That was exactly where it went. Xelloss would betray them. Him.

— _"You don't have a right to lecture her ..."_

_Xelloss is one and the same, he has no business being judge when he should be on trial. Only I have that right, I am the one who suffered at their hands. —  
_

Who?

— _"After all, I'm a devil."_

_She looked so shocked, it was ridiculous. Perhaps she really was as naive as she looked, but he knew what that child would grow up to be like. —  
_

The strange vision left him, but the unease stayed. Val had always known what Xelloss was — Filia didn't allow anyone in the family to forget — but he hadn't understood even when he'd seen him kill. Before, that had been something Xelloss did to Others, not to anyone in the Family.

Opposite of him sat a ruthless killer who would keep that smile as he tortured people to death and he would do it to Val if it suited him. But not Filia. Just Val.

Filia was the Other. Xelloss was the Other.

Us was ...

He shook his head.

The warm light and busy chatter of the crowds forced back into his reality, and before him were once more his mother and the silly priest she rivaled with. The world went on in a bright golden drone, unaffected and careless, but it didn't return to normal. Mere weeks ago, he could have believed this hall was everything, in feeling if not mind. Yet now everything like a lie. The world wasn't this bright.

A cold hand touched his arm and he startled. Claire leaned ahead, no more blissfulness on her face.

"Are you okay?" she asked quietly.

He had no idea. "I ... ehm ... "

There wasn't anything to tell. He couldn't talk. There was nothing to talk about. He couldn't talk. Couldn't talk.

Yet he wasn't okay.

Couldn't talk.

Didn't want to talk.

Claire abruptly stood up, took his hand and pulled him along. A table fell over in her careless move, but she paid it no attention.

Val let her lead him onto the terrace. They weren't alone, there were at least two duos in the garden. Claire looked for the nearest stair and led him there, out of sight of the windows and in the shadows, so none of the wanderers saw them too clearly. She sat him down in the steps and stood before him.

"Talk."

He looked up, helplessly. It didn't make sense. There was nothing to talk about. Nothing to talk about.

But he wasn't okay. Things he either imagined or remembered. He could be going insane. But what was he supposed to talk about? There was nothing to talk about.

"Val, you're scaring me." She didn't look scared. Maybe that exactly meant she was, if she forgot her expressions altogether.

"Your face is off," he muttered.

"Your emotions are off! What's happening? It's like you weren't there."

It wasn't quite right that she had no expression. Her eyes were wide. For the first time, Val realized how wrong her lack of pupils was.

There was nothing to say about memories. But he could ask her things, because in a way, they were both the same kind of wrong thing. She feigned mortality, so did he.

"Claire, I want to know who you really are. Can you make me understand?"

"Will knowing that help you answer my question?"

"Maybe. I'll try. There is nothing to say about whether I'm okay. But ... I'll try. I'm ... can I be between Valteira and Val? Or something else?"

She took a deep breath and sat down at his side. "I was astral before this body, which added faculties to my mind I never had or needed before. All of life is a sum of combined pieces, no specific limit, no unit on its own. Always changing."

As she spoke, she held up her index fingers about an arms length apart. With little hops on an invisible meter, she closed the space between them.

"I have been Granny Aqua, and before that I was Aqualord Ragradia, and before that I was Siephied. Every time, I was cut smaller and smaller. There were new personalities, but the fundamental nature remained the same." Her fingers touched and she looked up. "Now I am a child, sum of a remnant and a new body, yet all the memories of the past. A shrunken god and Claire. What that makes me to others will always be subtly different."

"Won't you lose yourself?"

"So what?" She added a shrug.

There was nothing to talk about. _— Valteira was dead._

"Val?" She took his hand. Only now did he notice his right arm had become draconian. Claire still had cold hands. "Val, don't go."

"Huh? Where? I'm here."

"Maybe you're changing," she whispered. "Everyone changes as they grow older, they are not the same people as when they were young. Anything, trauma, a friend, a spiritual paradox, a transformation, a moral dilemma can drastically change a person. I want to be more, but I know what I can expect and will become. Do _you_ know?"

There was nothing to talk about.

"You're worried about nothing."

"There are hollows in your emotional expulsion. This is not normal."

Val shrugged. "Maybe Filia screwed up something when she used her life law magic on me."

"She can't rewrite personalities or cut away the sources of emotions. I know what she can do, I've been teaching her. We've tried it on others, it's safe. Val, what's happening to you has to be something else."

She almost pulled off a pleading look. He shook her hands off. "There is nothing to talk about."

"Yes, there is. Val, I have to help you. Let me!" she said through gritted teeth. Her eyes were still dead.

"Hmm. It's just your stupid obsession with improving lives that makes you say that. I don't need your help."

She seethed, for as far as someone so dispassionate could. Her look had nothing of the subtle changes that happen with normal people. At least the golden dragons of Kataart were just stoic, but this was like she was trying to show anger, yet only had one mask.

Far more expressive was the water in the environment. Droplets formed in the air, and a nearby plant turned brown as steam rose from it. The fountain seemed to forget gravity and sprayed out in all directions.

So did the two lovers at the fountain's edge, who were after all overwhelmingly made of water. All water gone, they collapsed onto themselves.

They had no chance to scream, but Val did. He got out exactly a yelp before Claire clamped her hand over his mouth.

In the dim light of the torches, the heaps were barely visible before the foundation, but the sickening scent of blood filled the air. To humans, it wouldn't be obvious yet. To Val, it summoned a nameless revolt.

"I did not intend for that to happen," Claire said. "It appears my limited powers have difficulty acting under your shadow, coupled with the distraction of emotional turmoil. I will add this to my list of training. Now, Val, we have to talk about what's the matter with you. It may very well relate to—"

He twisted his arm up and grabbed her throat, pushing it close enough that she couldn't talk anymore. Her eyes widened, but otherwise she still failed at expression. It was unsatisfactory.

He let her go again, expecting her to keep talking, but she edged away. When her back hit the baluster, she stopped for a second It was a bit like a wild animal that couldn't decide what to do. Then she shot for the top of the stairs, only to stop a second time.

Oh, _now_ she was worried. Typical of gods, they could only understand their own pain.

"You murdered two innocent people. Don't you feel sorry?" he whispered. The low sound was only to avoid drawing attention from the remaining people in the garden, but he would have screamed otherwise. The other people in the garden hadn't noticed yet, but soon someone would walk by.

Claire narrowed her eyes, testing, waiting. Slowly she said, "I cannot feel remorse, if that is what you mean. I know it exists, but it is a form of regret that relies on conscience. I regret that I caused their deaths, more I cannot feel."

"You don't have a conscience?" He glanced back at the dark splatter at the fountain, the heaps of goo and cloth.

"Consciences are social constructs ingrained in the instinct to prevent misbehavior in a group. I am not the product of generations and individuals. No, I do have such a system. Val, why did you try to hurt me?"

He forced his claws back into a hand and stood up. Slowly, he walked up the stairway. Claire was still crouched at the top.

"You need to develop a conscience," he bit. "Or you don't deserve to rule this world."

"I see no reason or method to. Unlike preference and dislike, it is not something I have a natural predisposition for," she said. She didn't stand, instead the tips of wings edged below her mantle.

He crossed his arms. "So you refuse to understand why you're a murderer?"

She shot away to the other end of the terrace. Her wings were slipping out just in the shadow of a tree. When she spoke, her lips did not move, her face did not change. Everything about her was dead.

"Don't mistake conscience for an intellectual understanding of right and wrong. That I have no intense emotions about killing doesn't make me evil, just like I'm not going to assume you're evil because you don't have any emotions about hurting me. I'll try to understand you if you'll try to understand me."

"Don't try to turn this around! You're the one who—"

"Has not made the decision to hurt anyone, unlike you. Are you going to do it again? People are looking our direction now. You're the one who is acting aggressive in their eyes. You should leave."

She was right, they were watching him both from windows and garden. This wasn't good. He had to remain unnoticed. Nobody should suspect him.

"Let's go home," he muttered.

"You go. I will talk to them." Her wings withdrew.

He walked away without a second though. There was nothing to talk about. They shouldn't try to make him.

Once, he looked back. Claire still stood on the balcony a tiny dot clearly visible to his sharp eyes. She didn't look sad as she spoke to the guards who had just arrived.

She was a god, after all.

**· · · · · · ·**

Val shrunk himself to his natural age, crawled under his blankets and tried not to think about the things that had happened.

The death of that couple wasn't okay and he couldn't bear Claire's callous attitude about it. Oh, he'd be a murderer if he had to be, he knew that. But he had killed bad people. Innocent people was a completely different story.

By the time Filia and the others returned home, it was nearly morning. There probably had been a commotion about the death. Would Claire have told them the truth?

The door of his room opened softly and Filia approached. He remained where he was, pretending to sleep. When her hand was on his shoulder, he stayed still.

"Val, are you alright?" she asked gently. "I know what happened. Xelloss says Claire may have lost control of her powers due to some sort of magical effect of that plot of theirs. The enemy took over something miss Lina built."

He didn't respond.

"Val, I know you're awake. If you'd been asleep, you'd be sprawled all over the bed. Claire would like to talk to you and apologize."

Oh. Claire hadn't told them about what he'd done.

He peeked out from below the sheets. Claire stood in the open door. Filia nodded at her, like an actor on cue. Still playing?

"I don't like that I scared you, Val," Claire whispered. "I'm sorry for that."

Val didn't look ahead to having a heartfelt talk about this, so he turned over and pulled up the sheets. Everyone was faking everything. "Iws wokay."

"You're lying," Claire said sharply.

"Don't eat my emotions, it's rude! They're mine."

"I don't eat confusion and fear, I just smell it. Can you turn off your nose?" she huffed.

"No, but —"

"Claire, Val, stop. I don't know exactly what happened, but you need to talk it over. There's no good in bottling up rage," Filia said. She brushed Val's head. "The truth needs to be out."

Claire killed and didn't feel bad about it. Gods killed so callously. He wanted to rage at her, to make her get why she was something wrong. But he also knew if he did that, Claire might push that back on him by telling Filia his response. He couldn't talk about that and shouldn't make Filia afraid of him.

So the truth didn't come out.

He fully expected a speech about responsibility to come up, but instead there was a gasp. The room lit up slightly in blue, and Filia sped to the window.

"What in Siephied's name?"

Val raised up, curious now. Claire was at the window as well, both women's eyes wide with shock.

The nightsky was its usual dark blue, typical of breaking dawn. The galaxy's edge was tougher to see due to light pollution from Sailoon and the pillar of light that rose in the west, but otherwise the sky looked exactly as he knew it to be. No stars out of place, no doom objects descending, no rifts in time and space.

"Miss Claire, what exactly is that machine miss Lina built?" Filia said with a shaking voice. "This can't be."

Val scratched his head, he didn't get it. What were they so upset about? The light pillar stopped rising and broke into eight thinner wires, blocking out more stars. Were they getting upset because they saw slightly less stars now?

Claire's face contorted with terror. "Too early ... " She backed away from the window as the light pouring in become brighter and colder. All shadow disappeared from the room when one of the beams hit Sailoon.

An inhuman shriek escaped Claire. She fell, convulsing. Wings ripped from her back only to break themselves on the floor. Filia dropped to her knees, tried to grab her and screamed, "Xelloss! Get over here! It's not enough."

Val knew. Sailoon's shield wasn't enough, off course. It wasn't meant to be.

Barely had she finished or Xelloss phased in. One of his hands and both eyes were open. "As we discussed," he said.

Filia held up her hand to match his, a determined look on her face. "This better work."

They released magic from their fingers, black and white that mingled to a tighter shield.

Claire stopped thrashing around. Now limp, she was carefully taken into Filia's other arm and her tail. After a few deep breaths, the girl started crying.

Xelloss sat down opposite of Filia, allowing Filia to lower her hand to her knee. "I think at this time, you likely guessed this is a replica of Megiddo. It's calling for Siephied's pieces."

Val didn't like that. Filia might not have guessed that, but Xelloss was cutting edges again with his orders.

"But how?" Filia said.

"How not? Mister Pokota managed to replicate Gorun Nova and Galveira, didn't he? Now, please do not ask more."

"She's said it was too early ... so this was meant to turn on some day?"

"I don't know more," Xelloss said. He closed his eyes again, which was enough to signal defeat for Filia.

Val turned back to the light, which might just come from the center of the world. They were upset about that, eh?

The beam had a very distant sound that he could pick up if he focused. Maybe it had been there since yesterday ...

It was like a song, yet it wasn't a sound, a melody or even a lyric. Still, something in his mind was so similar to when he heard music. The bards Filia liked would describe music as nourishment for the soul, like food was humans and light for plants. He had scoffed at it, but this resonance was something similar. It was a pull, a need, there was an atmosphere and a pulse to it. Some part of him craved it.

It became easier to remember things. No more need for astral corridors or Claire's bible. Like stars clear in the night, he could recall the names of his first parents, of lands he once walked, of a terrible light and a comforting darkness, and in a split of utter misery, he fell onto the name of that man who had meant so much. Garv.

Someone grabbed him. The prickle of a shield — void — momentarily passed him, and then the song was entirely gone. Disoriented, he looked around.

Xelloss had pulled him into the barrier, and now Claire tugged him at his hair.

His mother changed a worried look between him and Xelloss. "Why did you pull him in?"

"I believe he was being affected as well, miss Filia," Xelloss said as he let go of Val.

His mother grabbed Xelloss's cloak. "Xelloss, please, tell me what's going on! Any hint will do!"

Xelloss shook his head.

"A hint for what? And what's that big light out there?" Val pointed to the window. That strange beam of light was fading away, or perhaps being pulled back to the thin light in the distance. It consumed all the darkness, even though it was so thin. Val wondered why he hadn't really noticed it before, it looked beautiful.

But Claire was afraid of it. She clung to his mother's dress and would have soaked it if she had tears. Val knelt at her side. Folding out his wings, he embraced her, hoping she'd be in less pain.

"So what now?" his mother asked.

"Now, we wait inside this nice little safety barrier until that thing turns off," he said, and his smile reappeared. "Fortunately, I happen to have an solid supply of tea and board games. Don't worry about Claire, she'll be fine in a while. Her astral form is just a little bit jostled."

His mother resigned and gave a weak smile.

"Given all the trouble this is causing us, I expect to get the tea for free."

"Eh ... naturally."

**· · · · · · ·**

Val woke late in the morning, just as someone slipped the cover of his bed over him. He didn't open his eyes, but he could tell it was Claire. A very tall version of her. The fusion magic shield was gone, he was all in control of himself again. Didn't mean he wanted to have their attention.

When Claire turned away, he slipped one eye open. Xelloss went through scrolls while Filia still lay curled up on the ground. Claire just stepped over her like she was another piece of furniture.

"Yes, and he said something about wanting me to develop a conscience," she told Xelloss.

"How typical of the saintly narcissist. Those hollow moments, can you give me more details about the time and conversations?" Xelloss handed her an empty scroll.

Claire sat at a desk and wrote. Val couldn't see from his angle, and he wasn't about to wake and ask about it.

— _Gods and devils are both astral. They cannot feel guilt and remorse. They do not experience compassion. They can be nice but not kind._ _The experience of empathy would harm their sense of self, but they need to fear that, for they cannot even sympathize. These are the creatures that rule your world. How unfair, when your world is populated by creatures for whom crime and compassion is so important to function._

_I understood at a time you were neither little nor one. —_

"This may take a while," Claire said.

"I see. I better return miss Filia to her room," Xelloss said. He picked her up, careful not to wake her but without gentleness. He might just as well have been holding a carton of eggs.

"Let me know whether anything changed about Val's shadow range," Claire said. She nodded and continued writing.

Xelloss walked out of range of Val's emptiness before warping Filia way. He returned soon, but only to retrieve the scrolls. He said a 'see you later' to Claire, she didn't reply. Didn't bother with any expressions.

He should tell Filia what he had seen. But he would not. There was nothing to talk about with any of them.

The world was all a game.


	16. Luna's Nerves

**· · · · · · ·**

Wind howled outside of the house and inside Luna's mind. Five days long, the tremor rose to the point even her physical ears didn't hear properly. The wailing had no origin, like a remembered sound doesn't make one turn to face it. By now, a mild nuisance had become relentless pain.

There was no physical injury, it was all in her mind. Not that knowing this made the slightest bit of difference, because regardless of the source _all_ pain only exists within one's mind. The only difference was that with an injury or an infection, the nervous system provided a handy little package of extra information : the shape, the location, maybe even a direction. _This_ pain had nothing of the sort. She couldn't flee from anything, there was nothing to heal or cut off.

The longer it went on, the worse her control over her own body became. All of today and most of yesterday was spent lying down, useless.

Lyos was affected just as much, but since he didn't see the astral plane he wasn't aware anything was wrong even as he concentration slipped. By high and low, he claimed not to suffer any pain, because hey, he had learned all life that pain was only this specific thing caused by injuries or emotions, which had shapes and external sources. Only yesterday he had started hearing a shrill thrill, and it wasn't until this morning he was willing to admit something was wrong.

The little brat didn't do so verbally, he just staggered into her hut complaining of headache and collapsing. Now he lay on a mat next to her because it had gotten so bad he couldn't leave.

Headache. What a weak word to describe this. Or perhaps that's all he felt? Maybe he was weaker, or just less affected by the astral side. Whatever, Luna didn't have the space left in her mind to figure it out. She'd never fully understood what it meant to be victim of astral pain; inflicting it on others and tasting their miasma was not on par with actually feeling it.

Days slipped by, the cycle of the sun didn't mean anything. Hunger was gone, but she ate when someone shoved food in her hands. Humans had to, so did she.

The presence of thirst tipped her off something wasn't quite right. Her body craved water, but all else she gained energy from became supplemental. Without sleep she couldn't even try to visit Filia (she'd almost gotten through whatever blocked her, dammit) and ask for any arcane ancient magic stuff that might explain this.

**· · · · · · ·**

The wailing took a sprint to the peak somewhere on the sixth day, like a rising tidal wave. The villagers were just getting ready to work when the shockwave hit. To them it did nothing, they didn't even notice it. To Luna, the pain finally had a form : he skin ripped off her muscles, doubly so. Both her physical and astral body were assaulted by an overload of pull.

It demanded her to come. She was but a small piece of a greater whole ... had to be united and flow together, could leave behind those thoughts ...

Like having two wills in one form, she was here, yet the other will was hers too. It really, really wanted to follow that pull. Her astral form, Siephied's corpse, constructing some instinct that translated to her human mind as a need to follow.

 _Whole_. Everything about the pull promised wholeness.

She believed it to be right for the seconds it took her to realize it meant her death.

If her resonance with Lyos's power had just spooked her, this felt like being cornered. Vrabazard, Rangort, Valwin so close by, Lyos even closer, Ragradia's power in the Kataart Mountains, the Eternal Queen not too far from there, and someone else her mind had no name for, but closest to her resonance.

The crack of her skull against the ground was laughably negligible amidst all that.

On the astral plane, the ribcage moved in synchrony with her own chest. The tendrils on the back writhed towards Lyos and the sea. Luna desperately wished she had eyes to close, but instead she saw double. Once with her own eyes, seeing both worlds, and the other was on the astral plane alone ... no ... no, now it saw the physical world too. Siephied's power seeped deeper into her soul, like water into a sponge. How could it be when at the same time it felt like her power was being ripped away?

Beside her, Lyos stood up. Eyes wide, he staggered out of the door. Luna pulled herself together, sent signals to her legs even if they didn't feel like they were part of her body anymore.

Lyos was only two steps outside when she grabbed his cloak.

"No, we're human," Luna snarled. "We can't go there."

She _snarled_. Not merely the way one speaks though clenched teeth, but genuinely adding a rubble ... not inside her own body. The ribcage around her vibrated with sound on each word she spoke. Shocked, Luna let go.

Lyos ran to the sea, or rather ... to the pillar that rose from beyond the horizon. It was needle thin but as bright as the sun.

Luna took a step closer, then another, following Lyos without clearly know what she wanted.

Cold hands on her shoulder pulled her back. It wasn't so much physical power as astral dominance that held Luna in place. Orun's soul brimmed with holy power, but not the type that was godly enough to be pulled in. It gave Luna a little stability.

"What's happening?" Luna blurted out. The shriek that her astral form added almost drowned her human voice. Orun cringed but didn't let go of her shoulders.

"It's a ..." Her fingers dug deeper. "Stay yourself. Just focus."

"What is happening?"

Orun didn't answer, but her conflicted feelings betrayed her. She knew exactly what was happening.

Before Luna decided whether she wanted to hurt her till she talked, that hellish pillar reached its peak far above the clouds. There it broken into threads, three of which came this way, intensifying the pull the closer they got.

Luna shook Orun off and had to run towards it, along with the flow. Every other direction caused pain.

"Dirgear, stop her!" Orun screamed.

"But I'm not supposed to touch her without permission!"

"Keep her here!"

That just wouldn't do, being talked about like some hapless child about to run into danger. Her brain needled, _just a little further, go go go_ , but she had to stop. At the village's edge, she threw an arm around a tree, abruptly cutting off her momentum. Heavily breathing, she clutched her wrist with her other hand. Not that she needed it anymore, but the feeling of holding on was something she needed.

Wait ... the damn tree was magically enforced.

It was all around the village, in fact, a ring of trees in a circle. She saw it, she felt it.

A scathing little laugh escaped her. All this time, she'd been inside a seal.

Her astral body janked at her to get closer to the approaching ray, but she force herself to look back through the houses.

Orun was still visible partially. She drew a five pointed seal around her, using a staff Luna didn't remember her holding before; she must have had a subspace with her.

The trees, the circle, the staff, Orun knowing how to hold her back, it was all magic she hadn't suspected from this place.

Was that a demon seal Orun drew? It looked like it had only five points ...

Spot shot out of the village, blocking her view. He held out a claw, a pleading look in his eyes. "Let me carry you back, Orun says she can help."

Any thought of response drowned in the fact that something poured into her. Poison and medicine at the same time, bitter and disgusting yet sickeningly sweet. It flowed towards her straight out of the confines of his soul. Dripping in, she started to find similarity with ... feelings ... worry. The taste of emotions was familiar ...

Oh hell no.

She was _eating_ emotional miasma as if she were an astral resident. Without a filter, the poison of his fearful worry mingled with his pathetic sense of love.

"Get away from me," she muttered. This time, her astral body roared so loud that Spot's ears flattened. She knew he couldn't have heard her over that, but she lashed out anyway. One round kick to his stomach later, he fell back and Luna was running again.

Confused by the double vision, she fell and tripped as she avoided branches that would never hit her small human form. She knew she had to stop, but her want was replaced by that primitive sense of belonging.

When she arrived on shore, she was just in time to see the last of Lyos disappeared into the ocean. He was submerged, but the water still splashed in response to his power. The first ray hit him, and he stopped.

Another ray had already halted above the sea, forming a bright white star where Luna felt the Tower of Wind to be.

That was all she could see before the last one hit her dead on.

Only when her soul started tearing from her body did she realize what it was like : Megiddo's pull.

Three years ago, she had died in the heart of Zephyria. Then it was her human soul summoned, a painless yet demanding pull.

Right here and now, it was Siephied's fragment being drawn while her human soul's remained anchored in her body.

Rage and other distorting emotions could bind one to this world by breaking the flow, Filia had taught her the barest minimal of spirit wandering back then. She clung to her rage and form and remained. As she clawed into herself to find hold, she found something stronger than mere emotions.

Something on her astral body turned, the second vision focused on the metal around her neck. A power was embedded deep within the demon magic, with only narrow channels to lead in holiness. The moment she became aware of it, her astral body saw a sliver of red on both planes, yet it was neither.

All her will clutched to this sliver and yet the only it did was allow herself to stay here. Her physical body had collapsed in the white sand, thrashing. Now she could hold still, even if not get up. She needed all her attention to keep herself in one piece.

For all she resented Zelas, she clutched her hands around her neck, drawing on the darkness within it to wash away the blinding light. Haircracks appeared in the flow and she could think a little more clearly. This formed a whole new weakness : just as she was aware of the gods, they were aware of her. Valwin realized she had an anchor, and she now had its attention.

Panic and desperation seeped into her mind, along with the thoughts of a god who didn't want to cease anymore than she did. The Tower of Wind had broken, Valwin came for her. Even with his failing speed, even if she'd been able to stand, there was nowhere to run. The astral plane was barren for a god, she could not hide.

There were about five or four crevices left in her mind where she could still think more than _oh god my soul is fragmenting Valwin is going to destroy me help_. These parts parts were seriously considering angst, save for the seething rage about ... pretty much everything. The last crevice belatedly informed her that rage wasn't just hers. From the direction of the sea, a rotten miasma rolled up the land, followed by a streak of silver, beige and white exploding from the ocean. Complimentary devil's darkness on the astral plane.

Zelas towered over Luna for a second, long enough for Luna to see a struggling Lyos in one of her left claw. The next second Luna was in the right claw.

The flow distorted sickly as Zelas warped space around them for a few seconds before the two were thrown onto sand. Luna actually felt the environment now, if only because Zelas's aura interfered with the flow.

They were back in the middle of the village, where everyone had gathered in the center. No one seemed surprised by the giant devil.

Astrally, Zelas kept her claws on the two, but her projection changed to the human form that matched the humans here most closely.

While Spot fussed over Luna, Orun stepped to Zelas without half as much fear as she ought to have. The summoning circle at her feet still glowed with power remnants.

Orun was about to speak when Zelas pushed a bizarre clay construct into her hands. The object was like something Filia would create if she stopped caring for stuff like purpose, which meant only one thing : a fusion magic vessel.

With half a turn, Zelas faced her ... or rather, Spot. She pushed the complimentary vessel, an abomination of symmetry and good taste, into his hands. A mad little chuckle escaped Luna through the agony of her soul ripping apart. Him?

"Orun knows about shields. If you want your mistress safe, will out the darkness of that vessel and let her steer it in tandem. Both of you want her safe, do you not?"

Spot, who had never in his life had used magic or even done much useful, summoned a pitch black blob that mingled with Orun's white magic. And voila, magic shield, just like that.

The moment it encased the small group, the pull disappeared completely. Zelas let them go and Luna forced herself up despite the complaints of her muscles. No second too long in that disgraceful state.

"Luna, are you better now?" Spot asked.

"No, Spot. Look at me spasming in the dirt," she said, point where she's laid before.

That's when she noticed Lyos. He was in the middle of shrinking down from a hulk version of himself to the usual guy. Even as he returned to normal, a frantic aura remained around him. His lips were streaked with blood, when he spoke she still saw fangs.

This had to be the transformation he'd undergone when Hylaker had controlled him. The bits and pieces Luna had heard didn't describe this ... had she herself undergone this? A quick check over her own clothes indicated the contrary, though. Luna wasn't sure what to think of that.

"What the hell?" Lyos said.

"Hell indeed," Zelas said loosely, but Luna could taste the sickening miasma of anger and anxiety. "As you may have noticed, my plans has been invaded."

"Yeah, I figured out! It's about ... I thought I conquered the sanity slippage! I wasn't supposed to lose it!"

"You did retain _some c_ ontrol," Zelas said coldly. "You would have attacked me otherwise. What is happening here is well beyond miss Lina summoning some borrowed power. Deep Sea Dalphin took over my much more potent project and she has no idea what she is doing. Unlike us."

With a smug little smile, Zelas peered up at the shield. Hmm.

Luna turned to Spot, who cringed as he should. "Spot. Does us include you?"

"Ehm ... well ... I don't know what they're doing, but Orun said it would be a great surprise for you if I learned magic and I guess its-helping-now-I'm-not-betrayingyoupleasedon'tI'msorryIjustwantedtohelp."

She cut at him across the astral plane, or at least tried to. Zelas was in the way.

Spot actually liked Orun enough to listen to that nonsense, apparently. He wasn't the kind to go around and make friends ... unless off course Orun had really bothered. She might have, if she was expecting to be using fusion magic at one point. It wouldn't surprise Luna the least if Zelas had given her the method of approach.

"You were in on this all," Luna said with deadly calmness, without facing anyone. "So, what exactly is _all_?"

Orun felt the sharp edge Luna thrust out on the astral plane and took a fearful step away, but didn't speak.

Luna had every intention of forcing her to talk, but at this point the temple meant to transport people to the Tower of Wind deemed it fit to explode like a volcano.

Instead of heat, freezing wind burst forth. The sky brightened eerily, clouds drawing together in icy white and lightning. Emerging for the core of the holy tower was a long dragon, tremendous but without the detail Luna had seen in Filia's dreams. Absurdly enough, it had more of a generic serpentine dragon, silver and with a burst of energy across its back.

"Spread that shield. Mister Lyos, employ your magic to draw water from the air and ground to create fog," Zelas ordered quietly. "Valwin is projecting into the physical realm because e realized e is blocked, so e is looking for the anchor it sensed before."

Zelas grabbed Orun and Dirgear by the shoulder and pushed them to the ground. She grew her white wings and spread them over the small group. "Expand it over the village."

Orun and Spot did so; Luna still couldn't believe that damn hybrid could work so efficiently with magic. He must have been training when she slept or something, and she hadn't even noticed!

Lyos didn't even need to use his sword to control the water now. The pull had changed something about his astral awareness; Luna idly wondered whether anything had changed about herself.

Above, the god coiled like a snake trying to escape the beast that bit its tail, breathing up whirling winds almost as an afterthought. Trees flattered, houses broke apart and Lyos almost lost the fog. Valwin should have noticed that fog made no sense, but that was the problem, wasn't it? Valwin couldn't think sensically anymore. If the pain of the pull was proportional to how much power one had, then Valwin was going through the worst of it.

That fusion magic shield did nothing to block miasma. Tasting misery was obnoxious, but in the past she just option to let miasma slide. She had needed conscious effort to even hold onto it. Now, it poured into her against will or want. Every bit of Valwin's pain ...

Luna never cried. Sometimes her tear ducts played up. That never mattered because it was one of many reasons having low bangs worked for her. She didn't feel sad, there were just involuntary reactions of her body. It was just ... everything the god felt copied into her physical body. Luna stood still because she didn't want to be seen collapsing again, but on the astral plane she couldn't help but lash out with limbs she had never been able to control.

Valwin's form shifted like driven clouds, expanding of fading with every new movement, reforming in others. Someone could have overlain the motion of an animal onto an illusion of clouds and this would have been it in its poorest form. Valwin's cry held nothing organic, it was the crack of lightning strikes, of bones breaking, of thunder rolling.

He wasn't watching anymore. The houses didn't last, causing pieces of debris to fly around. Lyos conjured a frozen shield for himself, Luna and those nearest, but he had a limited range.

Fearful humans struggled to get below Zelas's expanding wings, those who didn't make it were throw to the ground. Some died when wood or stone hit them. Undeterred by the pull, the true Megiddo called them to the other world, blue pillars only visible on the astral plane. For Lyos, it was the death of friends, so he added his own pain to Valwin's little banquet. The same he unwittingly ate from.

Luna almost enjoyed it, this toxic mixture of love and fear.

"What's he doing?" Lyos asked.

"E knows intellectually that merging with the other gods isn't meant to happen, so e clings to the here and now, even as the pull compels hir to," Zelas said, somehow audible even over the wind. "Let us say the gods have very little practice with denying the flow and their matching instinct."

The temple tower finally broke, unable to withstand a god's uncontrolled power. Like a long held breath, Valwin let go. It took along the light, leaving a suffocation hollow behind. Silence and a village covered in white dust lay at its center. Corpses scattered across the street where Valwin's power had not touched enough to burn them away.

Zelas's projection was only partially complete : her wings covered the village for a degree, but her claws and head were ghostly translucent. Central to those who had found refuge under them were Orun and Spot, still sourcing their shield.

As the other survivors realized they were safe, gratitude welled up. Zelas leaned her massive head, twisting it at an angle so her right eye — the less eerie one — looked down on the humans with an amusement said humans did not see. Zelas hadn't done it to protect them, only her investment.

"Lord Zelas, thank you," Orun said, bowed. "We wouldn't have survived without your protection."

"You are welcome," Zelas in an utmost formal tone, without caring at all. She shrunk down to her travel projection. "Miss Orun, please rise. I hate to have a conversation where I cannot see one's eyes."

On that last word, her astral body cast a condescending glance at Luna.

With no more than a shrug, Luna said, "You're gonna have to do so anyway, cause you owe me answers and I'm not getting a haircut."

"Alas, my contract with miss Orun is of a more savory nature and has precedence over you," Zelas's human form said.

"Gonna try to run me around the mill? Maybe I should ask my siblings once that thing is off. So much fun things to tell them," Luna held up a hand, back of the palm to Zelas and all fingers extended. "One. Megiddo imitation that pulls in godly particles. Two. Your clown shows some mighty flaws. Three. Rangort. Four. Orun knew to summon you and Lyos also knows you. Five. Philosopher's stone in my chain. Could go on."

"Well then. Telling them will cause them great panic and you will get their full attention. You did not seem to like this idea just before. I may tell you this much : you are a brewing station, Lady Corpse. Now, miss Orun ..."

As if she were a place and no person. Anyone else would've been subject to an astral cut right about now, but Luna wasn't foolish enough to try that on someone as dangerous as Zelas. She repeated this to herself a few times.

Luna wasn't used to interacting with insolent stronger beings. Her astral form responded to her will first and foremost, usually rational thoughts like "if I lash out, my victim might just hurt me in return" didn't need to hold weight.

It absolutely did now.

Zelas and Orun rattled on about pieces of a puzzle beyond Luna's grasp. She needed all her concentration to _not_ demand attention, or make any of the noisy villagers shut up, or get Zelas to stop treating her like a random bystander.

It was evident that the entire village were in league with Zelas. Dates were vague, but at some point Orun had vowed relative loyalty to Zelas in exchange for protection; there was talk that now the rays had pointed out both Luna and Lyos, this wouldn't hold. There would at least be scouts soon. Zelas couldn't be seen by them and intended to bail. She gave Orun a few suggestions on staying alive, feigning a credible balance between detached interest and actual care. Just business.

This was how normal humans had to live, always looking onto the mighty and feeling how powerless they were. No news to Luna, she'd seen it in those around her. In Lina. Now, she felt it herself.

Lyos came over to her side; though he didn't touch her it felt weirdly like he was pushing against her.

"Calm down, Luna," he whispered.

"I haven't even moved on both planes. Yes, pure rage. Calming down will commence by reducing zero activity to a negative five. That okay?"

"Don't play innocent. People always get hurt once you brace yourself."

"I'd be less on high alert if I'd know what was going on. Tell me." It didn't make much sense to expect him to tell her, but even now, he felt like kin. Damn godly resonance.

"If you know what we are doing, you'll do something problematic in response," Lyos said. "You're not _meant_ to be in harm's way, but it's going to really look like you are. Even if you'd believe Zelas won't do it, you could assume someone else might. Especially now she lost control."

Luna knocked on his head. "You could be lying. It already looks like I am in harms way. Or perhaps you're afraid I'll mess up whatever you're brewing?"

Without warning, humanoid Zelas stood before Luna and tore apart the transformative magic to reveal the chain on her neck. She janked it with scathing laughter. "For all your power, you can't break through my seal. Why would we fear that?"

Involuntarily, Luna closed her hands around shackles. Zelas pulled again, forcing Luna to take a step closer. The thick scent of an angered devil filled the atmosphere and the villagers increased their distance.

"Stop it. I'm not your dog!"

"I never said so," Zelas drawled as she wound the chain around her hand. "You are a fragile mind etched on a soul bloated and bleeding with godliness in a world where heaven is a lie."

Luna let her hands drop. "Did you get that one from a modern theater?"

A most unpleasant little smile appeared on Zelas's face. "I merely comment on what I see."

She stretched a long arm to the left. Luna couldn't immediately place the red vine thing she tapped with her long nails, not until she felt it with delay.

It was her own. She spun her head around.

Growing from her own back, out of the corpse's spine, was a network of red branching nerves materialized. Some were thick as an arm, others thin as thread. They all ended in the open, splattering droplets of blood over the environment. Every few seconds, a new nerve shot out. Not only that, but new muscles were growing across the skeleton. As she realized this, she started to feel it.

Luna clenched her teeth and slightly curled her fingers. The last time she had needed to resort to mental tricks to push away panic was at age six. She hated she needed it now, but she hated losing control in front of Zelas more. The bitch looked like she was having a feast, even as the human projection kept the obnoxious above-it-all look.

"How do I shut it down?"

"Perhaps you mean retract. No machine here, it is your own thoughts. Simply cease them. Oh, I remember. You have a subconscious _entirely_ out of your control. Human."

"You planted the idea, I can't unhear it."

Zelas shook her head. "Oh, no, not at all. It's all you. You want to rid of your power so gladly simple words make it happen, yet you are afraid of losing it. Such a contradiction."

"That's not a contradiction and I'm not losing Siephied, just energy," Luna snapped. "As long as I am called Luna Inverse, knight of Siephied, I'll be a target for devils. Better to have much of it. It's the lack of afterlife that bothers me, you know ... that."

Off course she knew. Luna should have realized she was being played again.

"Well then, the circle is round, lady _human_. Let me give you a reason to stop bleeding yourself : if you leak any of what you learned today into the minds of Valwin or Vrabazard once that pillar is off, they will come for you and tear your mind apart. Pray to yourself that I'll arrive first to send you hellward, because Rangort will be there waiting. Those dragons who saw little Val, whom Xelloss killed? Rangort tore their minds apart because it was more convenient than anything else."

That did the trick, and it also did something else. Under the venom of the wolf's words, Luna detected something weak.

Fear. Fear of the exact same thing Luna wanted to run from. The worst of losing yourself isn't the actual loss, it's feeling yourself break away. Zelas was afraid of her own fate with the same creeping mixture of self doubt and anxiety, like a stalked animal might fear their own noise and scent would betray them.

For Luna the greatest fear wasn't merely to cease, it was the imperfect nothing. A little bit of awareness left of herself within whatever she became, a last remnant that was still there to resent and suffer her fate. Zelas felt so similar as she spoke of this, it had to be the same.

"What are you grinning about?" Zelas asked.

"Nothing. The _nothing_ we're afraid of." These words dragged up what Luna had guessed at. Just a little more fuel ... "At least, I know how to plug any holes in my soul before I drain empty. You can't even cast magic without dying."

Zelas just raised an eyebrow and quelled her own sting of latent fear. "Hmm."

Oh well. This was good enough for today. For another day would be a method to use this against Zelas.

With a little magic, Zelas commanded the chain back into the necklace form Orun had crafted, as if to rub it in that it didn't matter she couldn't cast when she was _made_ of magic.

"I have one more question, if I may," Orun said. That was enough to make Zelas ignore Luna again. "If the pull can cause it to go awry like with Lyos and Luna, does this mean Airlord Valwin will remain like this? If he cannot balance himself or feed, will he recover? He has no anchor like the Knights or Sages."

Zelas growled, "How am I to know? Such a thing never happened before."

"How can you not understand your own plan?" Spot asked, an outburst Luna would have punished him for. Zelas didn't even care.

"I didn't form this particular part of the plan myself."

Oh. That meant it involved something not of her own magic, either a spell or a construction. On top of that, what did they want with Valwin? Was he meant to change into something, or was he meant to be subdued?

"I shall depart now. Miss Orun, mister Dirgear, will you make a hole in this shield?"

Orun nodded and conjured a small hole. For the second Zelas needed to slip out, the pull returned to Luna and Lyos, but it was so short they had no time to be tempted by it.

Outside, Zelas said, "Do stay in here until the pillar disappears, then move and don't look back."

When Zelas was gone, Orun ordered her people to salvage what they could and burn the dead. After that, they would follow the directions Zelas had given. There were certain magical caves to the south-west they could hide in, at least for a while.

The villagers scattered in silence and Lyos gave them guidance in a quiet voice. Their town was in ruins, the ground littered with corpses and the ash suffocated them all. Nobody spoke, as if they'd expected and resigned that this was the outcome of this pact.

In between comforting villagers, Orun used her time to coax Spot on better control over magic, which confirmed Luna's suspicions. It sounded like a continued lesson. All this time, she'd been mentoring Luna's dog without permission.

People kept flocking around, needing comfort and hope in the form of words. To Luna, things like that meant nothing. She had no emotional need for people ...

...

... neither had Valwin. Never before had a complete god been so close, she hadn't realized just how featureless their minds were. No emotional needs.

Luna pulled up her legs and almost put her arms around them, but stopped herself before showing such an obvious weakness. Comforting oneself was form of lying, she needed the real thing and that was that was who she was. Whole still, she'd make it through this. There were few devils who could kill her and she could will this errant form of projection into her control. The red web had stopped growing, she closed her physical eyes and little by little draw it back into herself. Siephied's corpse didn't withdraw, but she could deal with that.

Luna had seen the corpse all her life, but hadn't realized until she was five what she was seeing. Her parents usually ushered her away from gore, but that day they'd been distracted. It had been just a bit of roadkill at the side that was squashed on the lower end, the skin torn off on the upper body. That's when she realized that the weird red thing around her was like a dead thing.

It hadn't shocked her, but as time went on and she smelled more deceased bodies, the scent was associated in her mind with the decay around her. The slight stench never really went away, even when distractions didn't leave room to think about it.

So she had owned it. Luna had needed a good three years to get over the obnoxious idea she was filthy, mostly by playing with the idea she was the god of this world and nobody could make her do anything she didn't want. That was worth a slight sensory discomfort. She was fine now, but then Zelas had to march into her life, throw her around like a rag doll and be so gorgeous on _both_ planes. Shabranigdu himself was somehow flawed in his purpose, if he had a daughter like that. Or maybe, that was all part of her cheating on the natural order.

The last of the strange growths had drawn back into her, only for something else to shape in her astral side. But Luna decided it didn't matter. If Zelas could get away with cheating on all comatose Shabranigdu had intended, Luna had as much to say about her tie with dead Siephied.

She needed a plan to make sure she stayed the way she was. Zelas and her cronies couldn't be trusted, and Lyos least of all. Off course he would believe what he had said. He was a nitwit, it wouldn't be the first time a devil deity had wound him around his finger.

Luna would have bailed already if not for the rainforest. She didn't know the way, nor did she know how to safely feed on anything in it. For now, she needed to stay with these people, at least until they were into a more habitable area. Possibly she went on her own pressuring people into helping her, she would stand out. If the devils expected her to be here, they would send worse enemies. But if she stayed near Lyos, she might be herself some time. Devils couldn't see very far on the astral plane, as long as she killed anything that got too near she could remain hidden under Lyos's shadow.

There was the problem these people worked for Zelas, though. Everything that had happened, bringing her here, getting her engaged with the local magic, teaching her about the flow, it was to create this philosopher's stone in her chain. That was assuming she had it pegged right. Between talismen and philosopher's stones, were there any other purposes for this red stuff?

Now if only she had a library with vast knowledge, or someone who had studied under a great sage, or someone who knew how to tinker with magic. Hmm ... getting in touch with Filia would have to take precedence. Luna set her mind to evolving her astral form in a way that allowed her to dreamwalk from _any_ location, not just holy ones.

For the first time in her life, Luna actually felt like getting her spiritual affairs in order. When the pillar of light disappeared a few hours later, she'd be ready to ride the flow across the world ...

**· · · · · · ·**

A vague trance later, Luna had reached the profound realization that a chosen profession of waitress was a really stupid, arrogant choice. She could have spent that time actually learning about magic and spirituality. They'd bloody well pay her if she just provided some holy magic to do spells with. Her little exploration had only stuffed her memory with random images from nearby temples. With no progress in reaching Filia, she stepped out of her trance and into ... oh, look, war.

The sun was setting, someone had the guts to strap Luna on the back of a luggage bird and devils were flocking out of the shadowy treeline. Lyos was making short work of them while Orun had a holy shield going. No sign of the fusion magic vessels. Maybe they were broken.

Stiffly, Luna sat up and refocused. Trance went at the cost of even her astral awareness of the surrounding, she had only limited space in her mind. How embarrassing when there were devils to be killed. Ah well, it was only small fry. Nothing to be impressed by when she had just seen a god knock down a landscape by simply breathing on it.

Nevertheless, she knew to be cautious. The exhaustion tactic had been tried on her during the war around Luke Shabranigdu. Good thing they weren't expecting her this time. From the luggage she lay on, she claimed a kitchen knife in name of good old times. With a simple flick, she jumped into the fray and let them figure out what they were dealing with slowly.

"You're going to get us with a little kitchen knife, girl?" some random devil with typically shadowy look said.

Using the knife as anchor, she pulsed all of Siephied's power out, leaving her body and brain unmarred. Her exploration wasn't entirely without fruit. She looked down deep into the knife's structure. The tiny particles that made it up, the wood of the handle, the remnants of acid of the tree long gone. The power of growth, hidden there in invisible detail. She embedded it all with magic and bound it as a whole and voila, she held a sword. If she could project flesh, she could project metal.

On the astral plane, hell flared up again. Her dragon form's ribs folded open, the edges manifested in the physical form as a ghostly shield. Four tentacles unfolded, hers to control now. She set them alight with white fire, forcing them forward so quickly the devil had no chance to retreat. It got pierced, the miasma of its death throes pouring into Luna's mind. It tasted foul, but it was good to know its death was so miserable. She might just acquire a taste for this.

She killed another weakling, more slowly.

There was no Siephied, only Luna, a corpse of a god with a human mind. Zelas could rant all she wanted about fragility and bleeding, Luna turned it to her strength.

She killed the nearest five in the same way, and plucked two more off of Spot.

"Here I am, devils!" she called when she found herself without enemies left. "I tried staying out of your business, but you never ceased getting into mine! Here I am, out of my house and into your war. You'll regret inviting me." Quite cheesy, but devils rarely resisted a good taunt.

"Luna, none of these guys messed with you before," Spot muttered.

"Hush, I'm being awesome," Luna said. "They don't need to know the details."

Out of the rainforest, a new wave broke forth. The idiots still didn't realize what their enemy was, the stronger ones still focused on Lyos.

She forced more solidity in the skeletal projections that hovered around her, but it never became anything logical. It didn't need to be. She laughed with a human face and a dragon's skull as she surrendered to harvesting pain.

A human skull emerged atop the skull, a third face for herself. The bronze haze of the astral plane burned away in her brightness, and the poisonous miasma didn't matter because she decided to like it.

Ah, no, don't forget strategy. She could tire ... she looked for Lyos ...

They were little pieces of mortals, dancing through the devils for murder on the strings of dead gods. Puppets who become the master.

Luna noticed the blood only now.

She brought her hands to her mouth, first feeling the blood and the raw flesh of her cut lip. She pushed her fingers a little deeper. There were fangs, just like Lyos.

Luna took a deep breath, decided to figure out how to eat with that later and lived on.

There he was, the other one. Lyos was mowing through the devils like pinpricks. Precise, sure, but not very useful as a more broad tactic. He only knew how to fight solo.

She jumped to her side, wiped out some nuisances and crossed her arms before him, leaving no room to the sides.

"Spiky. Calm down. Roaring rampages of revenge are so trite, especially when we kill so much more by concentrating," she stated evenly. It was satisfying throwing his words back at him, and pop went the head of the devil that launched at her.

"I am calm!"

"You always overexert yourself when you're angry," Luna said. "Go do it in a more productive way. Herd this lot to me. I will kill them all while you get to be productive. Also, I want a smoke screen. Control some water into fog and clouds, magically."

He grinned manicly. "That'll work."

She was distantly aware the two of them weren't quite acting right ... too happy about the poison ... Lyos actually had forgotten about the villagers back there. No, didn't matter.

Luna projected pieces of tentacle before herself and stepped onto it. Then another, and again, creating a stairway made out of herself.

At about a hundred meters height, she had enough attention of the enemy. Lyos's clouds were rising, once all was covered, she raised the knife and called out, "This is the part where you swarm me!"

The mooks obliged.

She set her makeshift blade on fire with her fire. It wasn't really necessary, it just looked good.

Finally, one devil amongst the lot realized just what she was wearing as armor. It was just a muffled little cry of Siephied's name. She killed that one first with a single flare.

"Wait, don't! We didn't come for you anyway!" The nearest called, a second before his own death.

"Then you shouldn't have invited me to play!" she said with a smirk.

She pushed the wings into the physical world, decided physics didn't matter : they'd move through her tentacles if they had to. Only devils would die. She jumped across her own manifestations, killed with her willpower and her sword, both for fun. Her power hadn't increased, she just could use it more effectively. Luna snickered outside, and on the astral plane she roared. Eagerly she dug her claws into the nearest devils and ripped them apart slowly.

Nothing was worse for a devil than to know they died without contributing to the end of the world. She made sure a ghost of them remained, cursed to sink low on the astral planes. Xelloss had once told her the deepest levels were close to the Sea of Chaos, and the defeated suffered there with longing. She hoped it wasn't a word trick, and made a point of keeping that hope active. One of the first things Luna had learned about devils was that taking sadistic joy in their demise was on par with cutting short their food source. She didn't hate them, she enjoyed what she could do once she caught them. They got nothing out of that.

Now she was actually eating their agony, it should have been far less fun. Yet despite the poison, it was just as much fun as before.

She never stopped being Luna, and she wasn't so afraid anymore of losing herself. It didn't seem to matter much anymore.

 

**· · · · · · ·**


	17. Milgazia's Manners

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Public Service Announcement : we regret to inform you of a minor adjustment to episode 17's tradition of drowning hazards, aquatic monsters, romance and Gourry in drag. Due to the Red World containing no Gourry Gabriev at the time being, we have employed the next best blond guy. Unfortunately, he lobotomized any potential for humor. Our sincerest apologies for the inconvenience. We seek to rectify the situation as soon as possible.*

**· · · · · · ·**

Now that the Claire Bible was destroyed, there was little reason for Milgazia and his clan to stay at Dragon's Peak. They only kept station to guard over the piece of Lei Magnus, but this was form more than anything. The elves already were relocating to an area less populated with devils.

Milgazia and Azonge went south, prompted by a messenger of Valwin's dragons. Said wind dragons turned up with an army. Off course Milgazia had been aware of their movements, but the sheer extent had eluded him. There was practically an exodus of nations. Flarelord Vrabazard had commanded that all dragon tribes were to unite, as he sensed that the devils were up to something. Milgazia had every reason to believe this, so he eagerly joined. This had come as a relief to the messenger; negotiations with the earth dragons had failed. The earth dragons claimed that since their god had not contacted them over this, they saw no reason to found any United Dragon Nation. It would just provoke the devils needlessly.

Orispias, patriarch of the wind dragons, requested they search out the nomads and bring them together. Milgazia couldn't help but feel he and Azonge were shoved aside on a menial task the moment they arrived, while the wind dragons kept the more substantial work of the government to themselves. Nevertheless, it was something that had to be done, so they obliged.

Not all the eastern golden dragons were attached to the cathedral, but their primary culture was so tied by it that everything orbited it. With the destruction of Vrabazard's clan, the other factions had fallen out of touch with the individual houses due to lacking crystal ball headquarters. They were spread across the entire eastern continent. Finding them was a challenge.

Milgazia had sought out the so called second holy order first, the traveling monks that went between these smaller communes to carry along blessed items of healing and new teachings. The third, a coalition of houses that wanted a less religious government, were too busy bickering.

As Milgazia visited the communes, he learned the western nation believed in determinism of bloodlines. About six families dominated the houses, the unspoken rule that they'd proven to bring forth worthy children. The Ul Copt family was one of them. Milgazia met a twice removed nephew of Filia, who was under the belief she had died with the others of the main clan.

Milgazia was sorely tempted to assure him she lived, but after seeing the mixture of grief coupled with the belief she was a leading saint in heaven, he reconsidered. There was no way to tell she was alive without any of the unfortunate circumstances of it. Raising an Ancient Dragon, who the fire dragons believed to be inherently violent, and hanging out with Xelloss, slayer of dragons. Death and blessings in heaven was less depressing than the loom of eternal damnation.

Besides, telling the Ul Copts would get it to Orispias. This could bring more trouble than it was worth to sooth Milgazia's conscience.

Orispias was the sole patriarch of the wind dragons. A golden dragon as usual. Though his tribe was much more diverse than the northern dragons, he did not keep joint leaders, only a council for appearances. He had surrounded himself with a strict group of people who did whatever he wanted. Council was never kept. Milgazia was not fond of his style, but had to admit it had worked decently in the past. Though, he was uncertain how this would unfold in a more uncertain war scenario. Orispias only knew war under Siephied, now there was no such reigning force. Airlord Valwin had a method of utter detachment, so Orispias could do whatever he wanted.

Orispias very much wanted one of those dragons who could teleport. Telling him about Filia would result in "well we just have to get her away from that devil all the more". Then they'd have Xelloss on their roof sooner or later, which Milgazia absolutely did not want.

If he would even be believed, that was. He could hardly justify to his own mind what he had seen.

Before the visit, what little he knew of Xelloss came down to "he is stronger than us, ironically polite, can't be upset by anything and has no qualms about killing us if we get in his way, tactics range from finger pointing to hellsoup, and off course he wants to end existence".

Now, the facts were more like "he is stronger than us, ironically polite and acts like an immature brat around this one dragon who gets away with everything. We'll have to get back to the world ending thing later cause apparently this guy saved the world once. Maybe more." And the way they created fusion magic! His own people using the Claire Bible's knowledge, they had barely scraped the bottom of the theory. Those two marched in and did it, not even looking at any theory.

How did they do it? He'd seen was them messing around with clay and wirework while bickering, it wasn't mystical in the least. He had expected chants, long incantations, invocations of divine and arcane power, dark rooms with glowing symbols, aura of terror and awe ... not ... not ... toddlers playing with clay.

When they had left, the entire deposit of successful fusion magic vessels went missing. Xelloss had probably taken them for some nefarious purpose.

So really, there was no point in telling Orispias anything. They had nothing to show for anyway and it was pure humiliation at best, an angry Xelloss or Rangort at worst.

Not that _something_ didn't go wrong.

Yesterday a pillar of light had surged from the center of the demons sea. Within an hour, they received a Vision spell plea from the unit closest to the cathedral's ruins.

When a ray from the pillar hit a random area of the sky, Vrabazard had manifested and gone berserk. Raining fire was absolutely not standard procedure. The dragons present had hidden under a collapsed tower for about half an hour while Vrabazard raged. Communication stopped after that.

Azonge had arrived to find the burned corpses in the middle of a stretch of scorched land. He ordered all units to keep their distance.

Vrabazard moved zig zagging lines towards the pillar of light, until the pillar disappeared again. He had gone traceless after that and no prophet could contact him anymore. Divination died down entirely.

Vision spells could only do so much and this led to an interesting request to Milgazia.

"We heard an interesting story. To the south of your location is a shrine where a local medium attracted a ray of that pillar. You need to go there and check up on this person."

"What exactly should I do with the information I find?" Milgazia said while peering over the projected map. It was a human location he was sent to.

"Should a holy connection be confirmed, we would have you recruit the entity for our cause."

"A human? Why involve them?"

"You may have heard of a human named Lina Inverse. She destroyed two, possibly three pieces of Shabranigdu. We intend to recruit her against Lei Magnus, but so far we have failed in tracking her down. Not even her sister can be found. This sacred human is said to be a prophet who does not rely on gods. Whatever way they use, we should give it a try."

The unspoken was a fear that without gods, they were flying blind. Milgazia had long since grown accustomed to that, but he understood it well.

"You have my word that I shall do my best."

**· · · · · · ·**

His best included taking a small delegation and Memphis to the temple. With the right impressions and a subtle indication they were dragons, he expected to get in fairly easily.

Nope.

A less patriarchal society would have been very useful when it turned out the temple only allowed men.

He would have sent Memphis in alone, but the temple lay in the peak of a massive holy tree. The kind that liked to absorb Zenaffa. Memphis refused to go (to Milgazia's relief, he doubted Memphis unsupervised would leave the place whole. Turning into dragons and flying to the top was also out of the question : there was no place to land and it would be a hostile gesture.

His best bet was finding a female dragon amongst his ranks. He sent his soldiers back to find one. In the meantime, he and Memphis retreated into the park that circled the tree, allowing himself some time to think and Memphis to love on some plants.

Just as he made his way down a cobblestone path, a new problem presented itself : on a rocky corner sat a crosslegged, happily waving Xelloss. He was humming a childish tune, completing the picture of the innocent priest. Nothing could be farther from the truth, which was exactly his intent.

To his own surprise, Milgazia kept walking. This was too easy, perhaps he had bought into the act after all.

Granted, Xelloss was probably not interested in killing him. Indeed, Milgazia might almost believe the devil wasn't as big a fan of death spreading as he had seemed in the war. But such idle musings were for another time. More relevant was how he got here and how to make him leave as quickly as possible.

Milgazia stopped a few meters from him.

"Hello there," Xelloss said with almost convincing pleasantness.

"What is it you are after, beast priest?"

"Is that the kind of greeting you give an old acquaintance? Really, Milgazia. I've been your guest for weeks. Should you not be past the point where you suspect I will randomly murder you?"

"You might decide to murder me for a less than random reason."

Xelloss scratched his cheek. "I suppose that's fair. You _are_ a very faulty dragon, after all." One finger turned up and he cheerfully added, "But it's good to be aware of one's failings. Keep an eye on yourself and I'm sure nothing will happen."

"What do you want?"

Both of Xelloss's eyes opened, bloodlust thick in his aura. "For you do stop telling jokes. For as long as I'm here, don't try to make anyone laugh with any method what so ever. Do you understand?"

"Alright. How long will that be?"

The threat receded, and Xelloss chirped, "Oh, that depends on my companion. Speaking of that, where is your own?"

"My company? Memphy is ..." He looked around, but could not see her. "I have no idea. Why?"

"My, aren't you suspicious. We are in a similar predicament, yet my motives are questioned? Tsstss. Let's go find them, shall we?"

The priest stepped right through a flower bed even though he could float. Milgazia followed at a distance, if only because he did not want Memphis to meet Xelloss on her own. She had grown dangerously callous about him during his stay in Kataart.

Xelloss zig zagged through the park, happily wrecked shoe induced havoc on the vegetation. Truly, every act of his was drenched in evil.

Milgazia called out for Memphis. It took only a short time before Memphis came crushing through the undergrowth.

"Uncle you won't believe it! I ...what is Xelloss doing here?"

"I have yet to ascertain. What won't I believe?"

"I found another friend of Lina Inverse! Here! That witch is infecting everything we do!"

"Don't speak of miss Lina that way!" The voice's owner wasn't visible yet, but it was female and accompanied by a holy sense.

"What? She is a witch by profession," Memphis called back.

Out of the bushes stepped a young woman in purples, green and blues, her hair navy and in the typical neat cut of a priest. Her arms were filled with seedbags and bound herbs, a few select flowers stuck between them.

"I know what that tone means," the woman said. "It is how those who disagree with magic speak of its wielders."

"Hmmph. I am a magic wielder myself, why would I use it like that?"

"Miss Sylphiel, it may serve you to know miss Memphis is less against magic as she is against humans," Xelloss said.

"This is your companion?" Memphis shrieked at the woman. "Forget Lina, you hang out with devils? Why?"

Xelloss clapped his hands together. "Oh, that is a most unfortunate story. You see, I have this little issue with teleportation. Miss Filia was decent enough to teach me her technique, but as I am incapable of tapping into the flow, I move blind. I proposed to miss Sylphiel she be my guide, as she is excellent at feeling the flow and can invoke the necessary holy magic."

Dark speculations spun into Milgazia's mind about why he didn't ask Filia herself. Was she not alive anymore, was she—

"I thought it would be a nice surprise for miss Filia if we could go back to her city and retrieve her cat, but I'm afraid I got us lost," Sylphiel said, face turned down.

Ah, still alive then. Or at least, the woman thought she was.

"The flow of this area is a complete mess after Fire Dragon King Vrabazard went bonkers," Memphis said. "No wonder a navigating devil and human wouldn't be able to deal with it."

"No wonder indeed," Xelloss said, scratching the back of his head. Milgazia wouldn't be deceived by his nonchalant method.

"Human maiden," Milgazia said, turning to Sylphiel, "You should practice more caution in who you trust. The beast priest is a devil, not a man. He surely has a wicked plot in the works."

Imagine her response. She just smiled and said, "I've questioned him extensively and I believe in miss Lina and dear Gourry. They have told me he never lies, so I simply asked the right questions. I'll be alright, he means me no harm."

Milgazia sighed. Eons of experience with humans had taught him some people just could not be argued with. Milgazia tapped Memphis on the shoulder. "We will not leave the human unattended. It is our duty to protect the weaker. Remove her from Xelloss's company at first chance."

"Hmmph. Stupid human should have stayed put and called for help where ever she came from," she muttered, crossing her arms.

"Well, won't it be convenient? You can honestly tell the temple acolytes that we are travelers who met while on a pilgrimage," Xelloss said.

Oh no. No.

"The acolytes?"

"You wish to visit the temple, right? The solution is easy : you feign to be a woman. If mister Gourry and mister Zelgadis can pull it off, surely you can too," Xelloss said.

"We came here ourselves to the visit the temple I could try to use this tree to orient in the world's magical field and teleport back to Sailoon's Rygoon," Sylphiel added.

Ah. That meant Filia was likely in Sailoon.

"Ehm, miss Sylphiel, that is delicate information," Xelloss muttered.

"Oh, I'm sorry." Sylphiel gave him and Memphy a look that Milgazia couldn't place. Apparently, Memphy could.

"We're not going to snip! Like we'd want to get near anyone who attracts devils. Besides, Jillas and his family don't deserve those idiots that uncle hangs out with lately," Memphis snapped.

"Memphy, that is enough. Lord Orispias may not be the most in line with our ideals, but he is making a good effort to ensure the welfare of the world."

"Does he now?" Xelloss asked. Sylphiel looked down again. "Is that why you intend to abduct a sage for your teleportation scheme?"

How on earth did Xelloss learn this?

"Abduction is not in the plans. We will politely request help," Milgazia stated.

"You were at the entrance shortly ago. What stopped you from asking for a message to be delivered?"

"They would not take it."

"Aha. Well. You might as well accompany us then."

"Eheheheh. Yes. Like a devil would do us a favor." Memphis snorted. "I bet he's up to something. We'd be totally at his mercy in there! Not gonna happen, right, uncle?"

"Oh, you don't need to be at anyone's mercy," Xelloss said. "Miss Sylphiel can communicate with holy trees, surely she can convince it to leave your Zenaffa armor alone. You'd feel more at ease with that, do you not?"

Memphis gave Sylphiel a look. "You ... can talk to the holy tree? How?"

Sylphiel twiddled thumbs. "It's not quite talking, at least not like we do. Just understand the flow and pacifying. I've been learning it since the barrier dropped and holy magic returned."

"Hmmmph. I guess I'll have a look what you can do, but I don't expect much of a human."

"Excellent!" Xelloss said. "For this moment forth, we are four holy women on a humble pilgrimage!"

He was so obnoxious, Milgazia couldn't help himself. "I'm not on a pilgrimage. _I_ am aiding the foundation of a nation. _You_ are looking for a cat, which you will doubtlessly wield in a way to annoy Filia."

"Come now, don't be difficult. It will be _fun_ ," Xelloss said, cracking one eye open, and the discussion was over.

Milgazia suspected his real reason for being here was spying. The massive open air movements of the dragons would not have escaped the devils. Perhaps his target was the prophet. In that case, it might be best of Milgazia was around. He could endure this.

**· · · · · · ·**

"Oh no, mister Xelloss! Marine blue is absolutely not mister Milgazia's color," Sylphiel said.

"I know that," Xelloss said while draping a shawl around Milgazia's head and neck. During the war, Xelloss had experimented with various methods of killing dragons. Strangulation had been one of them.

"Then why do you do it, mister Xelloss?"

"I believe a poorly organized color scheme will aid in distracting from his more memorable features. Normal humans rarely possess spiky eyebrows." Xelloss tied a knot a little too tightly. Milgazia dug his fingers into his chair. Well, chair ...

Their "changing room" consisted of paper screen and a line of bushes, chairs were created from dead trees. Xelloss did not bother the ladies while they were changing, if only for the wicked intentions of lowering their guard.

Where Xelloss got all these dresses or the mirrors was better not asked (surely they were stolen, the former owners left for dead after excruciating torture). Milgazia had spent half an hour getting into his assigned piece. After that he had assumed the torment would end, only to end up where he was now : before a mirror, being adorned with scarves, hair spray and make up by his nemesis.

Milgazia's expertise on human fashion was lacking, but he had a good idea this was extravagant compared to the local humans. He vowed not to look in any reflective surfaces he might encounter, including the mirror before him. Closing his eyes did the trick for now, but later he would have to walk.

The shoes were last; tight pointy withs with needles on the heel, making walking a painful exercise by straining his legs muscles and taxing his spine. The melons he was to wear up front only made it worse.

Almost equal was the effort to retain dignity. He was not to lose control of himself, a dragon elder had no business making huffing noises and insulted faces.

Xelloss only needed one little astral shift to change himself. The vile monster reappeared in an obscenely formfitting lilac dress that made it no secret he had changed his projection's gender. There were definite hips there, and other things.

He looked away.

"We should go through the village!" Xelloss announced. "This will give miss Memphis, who has been seen already, a credible source for meeting us travelers. As we are there, we should definitely check out the souvenir shops. They're all themed on the sacred lake in the top of the tree. I hear there's fountains, mirrors and I'm interesting in the local tea shops. Keep your eyes open, the roads are not smooth."

**· · · · · · ·**

Two hours later, Milgazia vowed to nevermore condemn Filia for heretical thoughts. It made entering the temple practically anticlimatic. **  
**

At the entrance of the temple, Memphy gave a spiel about having ditched the dragons, meeting these nice travelers almost slipping up on Milgazia's identity. Xelloss jumped in, implying but never quite stating (the word hypothetically was used a lot) that a dragon had stolen the woman's looks for his transformation, causing her a bad name. Milgazia was allowed to pass under sympathetic murmurs of, "dragons are always so callous, ruining people's lives with their high and might attitude".

Though he worried, Milgazia remained silent as they climbed the first stairs, a squeaky wood thing that ran up a steep root.

"Why are they matriarchal?" Sylphiel asked when they were out of anyone's earshot. "I've never heard of a temple that worked like that."

"From what I gather, this order has existed for nearly two thousand years and came into being due to a combination of luck and need. Luck in that a man who loved his daughters and had no male heirs gave all his property to them in defiance of the law, upon his death. Need in that this area was governed by dragons who were even more patriarchal than humans at the time. Unlike Aqualord Ragradia's dragons, the fire dragons enjoyed intimidation. You ought to see the massive temple they had built, miss Sylphiel. Humans in a hundred mile radius were reminded every day of their presence.

For that reason, the local humans invented a rule about men not being allowed to enter and backed this with the tree's magic. It severely limited nosy dragons, and is largely the reason why a patriarchal caste even recognized priestesses such as miss Filia. They were more or less forced if they wanted to uphold their sanctimonious attitude," Xelloss said.

Milgazia clenched his teeth. Telling himself Xelloss had no good reasons to lecture him about inequality didn't help. No, that just made it worse. It was a lot more painful hearing it from him as it had been from Lina, and that had been bad enough. How typical of him to try and wield certain lesser flaws in such a fashion. Devils worked that way.

"Magically backed? I don't notice anything," Memphy said.

"There's a shield around the tree that alerts the acolytes if a man were to enter," Sylphiel said. "I've convinced the tree we were friendly. I'm a little surprised at how easy it was, though."

"Try harder. My Zenaffa's getting nervous, I don't think I can keep it shaped like this for long. Not that I'm bad at this, off course. That tree's just very dangerous."

"I'm already speaking," Sylphiel said, smiling. "There is no need to worry, miss Memphis."

"Right. You're ... talking to the tree. Just like that," Memphy said. "If my Zenaffa armor gets absorbed, you can explain it to my parents."

"Memphy, calm down. Your armor is not showing the signs of absorption," Milgazia said.

"Okay ..." She gulped.

Vusang was larger than the town at its root, a solid sturdy root network that support a thick stem. Branches filled it from bottom to top, across which pathways hung. This long winded construct circled the tree and was adorned with sacred mirrors and passed through several clusters of houses.

Milgazia was sorely tempted to cast his fleet feet spell, but that would give away his dragon nature. The spirits appeared very much in line with the humans living here, they might betray him despite Sylphiel's efforts.

"I'm surprised a devil can go here without being affected," Memphy whispered at a point Xelloss had stayed behind to torment someone.

"Perhaps he is simply too strong?" he said.

"Can't be it. Do you really think that woman can talk to holy trees? She says she's from Sairaag, where Hellmaster died and Luke Shabranigdu as well. Do you think that's suspicious?"

"I would not know," Milgazia said. "We should find that prophet and teleport out of here."

"That's awfully simple and without caution. Let's wait and learn stuff first, I don't mind spending some time here. It's pretty nice."

The absurdity of Memphy being the more rational side of the team did not escape him, but his stockings were riding the wrong way. Milgazia was ready for desperate measures.

**· · · · · · ·**

They were assigned a room to share and told it might take a few days before they could see the prophet. Memphy disappeared for five hours along with Sylphiel and Xelloss. Milgazia spent the entire type trying to adjust these infernal clothes into something more suited for scaling a tree.

Memphy and Sylphiel returned late in the evening, laughing and smelling of herbs. They wouldn't stop talking to each other.

"Ahem. Did you find out anything?"

"Oh, yeah. The prophet's name is Lassandra," Memphy burbled. "She gives advice about people's lives. We didn't hear anything about powers useful to us, but we could always ask. Xelloss found her location, it's up and a little to the west.

"He will meet us later, but for now he would like to avoid you. He says you are fatally vacant," Sylphiel said. "What does he mean with that?"

Memphy clasped a hand over the woman's mouth. "Just ignore that, uncle. Sleep. Let's sleep. Don't think about vacant words."

**· · · · · · ·**

Before dawn Milgazia, Memphis and Sylphiel climbed out of their window. At these lethal heights, he would have felt safer with his wings out, but alas, that would make moving more difficult. He had burned the shoes, but the dress still got in the way. His destiny did not involve climbing. The way up was obstructed by a thick maze of leaves, which Sylphiel would navigate through on the flow; she ended up casting a levitation spell. Neither Memphy nor Milgazia had ever learned such a low ranked, human invention. Memphy could use her Zenaffa wings, but Milgazia had to go up the old fashioned way.

By the time they reached the room of the prophet, the sun was rising. Memphis and Sylphiel insisted on stopping to look at it. He supposed it was an artistic one, but otherwise didn't see the appeal.

The hanging home was roughly the side of a three dragons. All windows were sealed, but he could reach one by balancing on a nearby branch. Just as he was to use an unlocking spell, Sylphiel floated near.

"Excuse me!"

"Hm?"

"I can open that without magic that might tip the barrier," Sylphiel said. "It's just an ordinary lock."

"How would you know that?" Memphy asked.

"Well, mister Zelgadis is good at lock picking, and, uhm ... he introduced it to ... I asked him to ..."

"Do you mean to say—"

"Uncle! It doesn't matter, okay? Go ahead, Sylphy."

She took out a hairclip, fumbled with the metal construct, and indeed, within five minutes, the window quietly swung open. This was long enough for Milgazia to become accustomed to the atmosphere and energy, and he started to pick out a certain ...

As the window swung open, Xelloss leaned out. "Oh hello, everyone. Indulging miss Sylphiel's kleptomania?"

Sylphiel went beet red. "N-no! It's not like that! Mister Zelgadis just thought it would be handy for me to know."

"Don't listen to him, Sylphy," Memphy said. "Why are you here?"

"I knocked the door, politely requested to attend without asking question, and was obliged. You might want to know this is a front hall to the lady's private quarters, currently occupied by humans seeking advice. I suggest another door, unless you would like to go back down all the way?"

"No," Milgazia said.

Xelloss pointed to the left, at the bottom of the tree house. There was a shaft there, which occasionally opened. Off course. A garbage dump. The most odious plan that devil could devise.

Memphy and Sylphiel fit, but Milgazia didn't make it through without being covered in filth. They emerged in the kitchen, where Xelloss met them. He distracted the cook while Milgazia and the others climbed out, which made Milgazia worried he had worse in storage. Once safely in the hall, Xelloss joined them.

"Hmm. I had hoped your adventure in garbage land would be entertaining, but everything about _you_ drains any potential for entertainment. How disappointing."

"Off course, your ideas about entertainment are very different than ours, gofer devil," Milgazia said.

"Don't call me that!" Xelloss snapped.

Sylphiel took a step between them. "Did you find out whether we can access the lake, mister Xelloss? I'm afraid I still do not have enough clarity to bring us back to Sailoon."

"Why don't we hear what miss Lassandra has to say? The hall of consult is right here."

The hall of consult wasn't truly a hall, merely a chamber barely large enough to house one golden dragon. Flocks of humans lined up here to speak with a woman on a large pillow in the center. She was what dragons called the sun touched humans, a race with brown skin, nearly black. Her dark red hair was in small braids and she wore green and red robes. It all set her apart from the eggshell and brown colored humans around her. On closer look, she had elongated earlobes. She was only similar to humans, like elves might be mistaken for them.

"Should we line up?" Memphy asked.

At these words, the woman stood up and declared to the room, "I have all the time you need, stay as long as you wish."

A murmur of disappointment waved through the crowd at the obvious lie.

"They say she often speaks the opposite of what she means," Xelloss said, scratching his cheek. "I suppose she just told them to leave, so that answers your question, miss Memphis. We don't need to line up."

When the room was nearly empty, the woman jumped off the pillow, facing the group that still stood near the door.

"Tonight, we entertain invaders." She spoke with a hushed voice, raw and old that carried all around the space. If one could whisper at speech level, this was it.

Milgazia braced for the others in the room to respond at the accusation, but none of them even looked up.

She pointed to a table near them, nodding. There stood four glasses : tea, tomato juice, milk and cider.

Xelloss claimed the tea with a curt, "Thank you."

Memphis picked up the tomato juice, sniffed it, twirled it and then took a tiny sip. "This is ... okay."

Sylphiel claimed the milk and handed the cider to Milgazia. "How does she know what our favorites are?"

Xelloss shrugged. "I suppose the rumors about her are true."

"I really want you to stay here while I talk to these people about irrelevant things," Lassandra told the lingering acolytes. They were out in a huff.

Milgazia would have taken the word, but he was sore and stank of garbage. In the hesitation, Memphy took the word.

"So, you're Lassandra the prophet, right? Pretty impressive, with the drinks, but you'll have to prove more."

"Will I?" She rolled her eyes, sighing. "You should call me Leyunso."

Milgazia didn't believe her for a second. Clearly, she was playing some sort of game.

Xelloss frowned, fazed away and reappeared as a whirling cone twice before solidifying into the human projection again. He did not smile and his eyes were open, but just for a few seconds before he returned to his usual charade. "Very well, miss Leyunso."

She broke into laughter. Had Milgazia missed a joke? Even when she stopped, a wide grin split her face.

"There you are," she said. "There you _are_ , seed of Zelas. Every bit the clown I expected. I am pleased to meet you then."

She held out her hand, Xelloss slowly took it. They'd barely touched or he pulled his hand back, clutching it like it had been burned.

"There is only one creature I ever encountered with that astral signature," Xelloss said. "I take it you are her complimentary half?"

"Hnngh. Half? I am whole, just much weaker. Any of our kind will tell you that much. You'll ask them next time, won't you? In this game, you cannot afford ignorance of how minds work."

"I've never failed to understand people, or how would I have come where I am now?"

"Are you the master, pushing around ignorant, predictable pieces? Or are you yourself are a piece, surrounded by other pieces that you cannot afford to lose? Perhaps you are strong and they are fragile. Did you account for that?"

"What are they talking about?" Memphy asked.

"The fate of the world," Lassandra said, clearly lying.

"I do wonder why you are here at all, miss Leyunso," Xelloss said.

"I've been through a lot of phases, beast priest. I raged, I feared, I denied, I tried going insane, I made myself a saint, I became a god to some and a weapon to others, I actually went insane, I tried killing myself, but nothing sticks. After a while, I figured I might just as well stay where I am. At least until now I've come to the attention of the wrong people. We'll all be leaving soon."

"I see." Xelloss gestured at the door. "After you."

"Hey, Sylphiel, did we miss something about Xelloss?" Memphy asked, elbowing Sylphiel.

"I honestly have no idea," Sylphiel said. "Mister Xelloss was always very cryptic, but I've not known him to engage in such nonsensical conversations."

"My apologies," Xelloss said. "It would appear miss Leyunso has a very complicated state of being. Do not concern yourself with it. She will be able to help our little predicament."

"I don't think she can," Sylphiel said, quite rightly.

"Is that a very logical belief? Perhaps you misunderstood something. I assure you she will be able to steer a teleportation spell well, given that she is in the central lake. Shall we go there?"

"Alright. I'm eager to return home, everyone must be so worried," Sylphiel said.

Lassandra grabbed a few bags, tied them on her back and left the room without another word. The four followed her at an even pace. Memphy lingered behind with Sylphiel, Xelloss hummed something annoying. Part in an effort to get away from him, part for his mission, Milgazia came to the side of Lassandra.

"Human maiden, d—"

"Are you sure I'm a maiden? Maybe I would prefer to be called by a name, dragon?"

Actually no, he wasn't sure. "Lady Lassandra, how can a holy person such as yourself converse with a devil in such a manner?"

"You are fond of that question, are you not? Is that your elf with the history of destroying towns? Maybe we should be more worried about her than about the beast priest and I."

Behind them, Memphy huffed. "I've gotten a lot better at that!"

"You have not," Milgazia stated. "Lady Lassandra, you spoke as if you are happy to see him. Have you had familiarity with Zelas Metaliom?"

"I pushed her down the existential slope she was teetering on."

Clearly, he wasn't getting any honest answer out of this person. If she was so uncooperative, it might be better if she was not involved with the national efforts of the dragons.

The woman led them into a maze of corridors grown into the tree itself, her hands touching the bark here and there. There was no hurry in her steps, he might have pegged her as drowsy if not for having seen how hyper aware she was just before.

They doubled back twice and once took a long route around something. Not once did they encounter another person.

Without incident, they arrived at the highest point of the tree town. There wasn't a single top, rather, the tree branched in five directions. In the middle was a green lake covered with lilies, circled by a mossy shore. The center was pitch black, Milgazia suspected the bottom might be as deep as the roots.

"This isn't the sacred water of the tree," Lassandra said, her hand unfolding to the lake. "It hasn't flown through the veins of Vusang and shared in its power. Try to navigate on this, Sylphiel."

"I will do my best," Sylphiel said. She stepped into the shallow shore waters, her hands clasped before her face. For a while she stayed still.

"I believe I've caught the resonance of Rygoon! Stand close, please. Mister Xelloss, you should not touch the water, but you should be fine if you float above."

The devil shrugged and fazed over to the spot. Presumably under his magic, the hollow husk of a holy circle appeared. With some effort, Sylphiel steered local holy magic into it.

"Wow ... it's nothing compared to an elf, off course, but that's pretty good for a human," Memphy said.

"Uhm ... thank you," Sylphiel muttered.

Memphy looked oddly happy with that. She jumped into the water, taking Sylphiel's hand. "Let's go! You still have to prove this works!"

Clearly, Memphy had forgotten about their mission. Milgazia tapped Lassandra on the shoulder. "Lady, I would like to—"

"I would like to," she said in a tone that made him disbelieve her. She didn't like that at all.

"I would merely propose that—"

"I'll go my own way," she said with the same slow voice. "You are trustworthy, I'll take my chances elsewhere."

So ... she'd come along? Why did it seem like she didn't think he was trustworthy? What ...

Milgazia had the feeling he was missing a lot of information.

Again.

"Well, seeing as mister Milgazia is here, perhaps that will become a problem," Xelloss said. "He is intent to recruit you for his cause."

"I have known. It would be why I corrupted the flow to lead you here."

"Oh my. That is most interesting. Should you be stating this out loud? Won't it undermine your, _ahem_ , escape plan?"

"They can't believe me. They really can't. In fact, it's better if I say it flat out : I realized they were after me and also realized that I could not outrun them. Teleportation is my best bet."

"What are you all jabbering about?" Memphy yelled to the shore. "Come on, uncle! Sylphy needs more holy magic! Let's leave already!"

By now, Sylphiel and Memphis had created a glowing circle around them. The flow waved out strongly and the water took on an eerie glow. When Lassandra stepped to the water, a glowing pathway form below her feet. With every step she took, it grew a little further until the circle. Once there, she spun around.

"Don't watch out of the lake guardian! He was not be angry at your intrusion at all," Lassandra declared.

That was the last Milgazia saw of her, because she flashed out of sight. Memphis and Sylphiel were left to fall back into the water.

"What happened?" Milgazia asked.

"Miss Leyinso used my teleportation knowledge combined with Sylphiel's work to go elsewhere," Xelloss said. "Well, I best go report to my liege. Miss Sylphiel seems to be in good hands here, I'm sure you can see to her return. Do make good work on my promise she'll return, will you?"

With that, Xelloss was off for whatever wicked work he did next.

Memphy and Sylphiel emerged, spluttering water. The elf was poked in her ears for water, complaining softly about sensitive ears, while the human just giggled. Thus occupied, they didn't notice the center of the pond grow darker. It took the tidal wave to make them aware.

Following that, there was a dragonsized frog, whose croak rang of doom and bad dental hygiene.

Yes, dental hygiene.

It had teeth.

On its tongue.

Which was now head towards Milgazia at a speed faster than he could dodge in human form. It was a five meter wide tongue, this ought to be mentioned.

He transformed, catching the brunt of the attack in his stomach. Even at this side, he was thrown back against the nearest main branch.

The frog pulled back its tongue, leaving Milgazia to bleed. He staggered forward, losing his footing on the slippery moss. This sent him head first into the water. The frog jumped on him, pushing him under. Its suction fingers clung to his wings, he couldn't expand them.

Xelloss might have just spared him during the Devil's Descent War to give him a more humiliating death later. By water no less, the very element of his own god!

There was no god to save him, but the water did heat and someone did pull him out.

Memphy had gone full giant Zenaffa mode. One hand pulled Milgazia to safety, the other used for balance to push down the frog. For a moment Milgazia believe victory, then the armor's mouth opened to form a laser breath attack.

"No, not here!" Sylphiel called from the shore. "This is holy water!"

Too late. Memphy's attack hit the frog and sent the water boiling, but part of it was diffused by the water's power and bounced away, sending power fragments into the tree itself. The wood splintered and burst into fire. Within seconds, a rain of branches came down. Milgazia scrambled out of the treetop, spreading sore wings.

Sylphiel was thrown off the tree, just as wind caught his wings she passed by. He tried swooping closer, but with his tiny arms, he had no effective way to catch her. Simply going below her would just make her splatter by the sheer momentum she had gained from the fall.

The frog forgotten, Memphy shot by, swooping her up before she was even halfway to the ground. Momentum easing away with magic and a wide round arc, she landed in the park below the tree.

When Milgazia joined them, he heard her stammer her apologies to Sylphiel, who sat in her massive white hand.

"I'm so sorry, Sylphy! I wasn't thinking!"

As usual.

"It's okay, please don't feel bad about it. You just wanted to protect your uncle," she said, though she sounded more sad than cheerful.

Milgazia agreed this far. The glorious holy tree was burning, making a sound almost like humans in pain. Acolytes were busy putting out the fire, but it would be a long time before it returned to tis former beauty.

Memphy should be lamenting the damage to the tree by now, but she was still fussing over Sylphiel. They were going through a blundering variant of hero and saved routine. Milgazia was familiar with the behavior, as it was prescribed in the methods on how to deal with humans. Memphy was turning red, as usual, shy over the excess of gratitude. Sylphiel was also red.

Milgazia was glad he hadn't bothered to detransform, since he had to drag her away. He had no interest in speaking to any of the angry acolytes.

Especially not since his human form was still clad in a very unflattering dress.

**· · · · · · ·**

Their dragon camp was human sized with tiny tents, less space was more convenient in these lands that had a less than favorable opinion of dragons. Milgazia plopped down on his bunk bed, which promptly broke. Little beauty flaws like this didn't deter him from some much needed sleep, but the fact that Xelloss returned did.

Xelloss floated in the middle of the tent, jovial as ever. "I heard the most interesting thing in the other dragons camps. You've told them miss Leyunso unfortunately slipped through your fingers. Not a word on the fact she fled! Will you pursue her even as you know she wants nothing to do with this?"

"There was no good chance to persuade her. More importantly, you were there. I suspect she fled from whatever nefarious purpose she realized you intended to abduct her for," he muttered into his pillow.

"Is that so? I suppose that's a fair assumption if you assume me the eternal enemy and have no god to chew the answer for you. At least, not a god you would find acceptable. Do you believe you can trust your current gods, Milgazia? Even now?"

"Off course. They may be negatively affected by that pillar, but from what I've heard this is otherworldly sorcery. When whole and healthy, our gods are our beacons."

"Where are the Ancient Dragons now?"

"They are ... that was the work of a renegade leader."

"Vrabazard didn't bother calling in to stop it. You have vision magic spells more accurate than godly prophecies. Don't tell me he couldn't have ordered him to stop? In fact ... did you know that the Dark Star prophecy included a line that spoke of the dragon's blood that would flow? It almost sounds like it referred to the massacre of the golden dragons. Vrabazard didn't care either to tell his own followers to stay out of it. No, the gods chose the one tribe most likely to die in the conflict."

Milgazia closed his eyes, but it did not block out Filia's words.

"We cannot understand the gods," he muttered.

"I can. After all, just as I am, they are astral beings. And where we devils still have a hierarchy, they do not. The gods, they have no need for rules or regard for life as long as they can feed. Perhaps since your clan was available again, the loss of the golden dragons of the east wasn't such a big deal."

"They made mistakes on their own accord."

"That their god never cared to correct them on, when it was in his power to do so. In fact, Vrabazard's massacres tend to be so much more thorough than those of my liege." Xelloss chuckled. "I never went back to kill all of you. Vrabazard's dragons did do so, save one. And now they're all dead, save one. Isn't Vrabazard responsible?"

He wouldn't be deceived by these words. "What is this about, beast priest?"

"Oh, nothing, apparently. I was merely curious to see how rational you can be in dire situations. You see, the closest you may have to a sane god who might consider your welfare is the person who is fleeing from you."

Milgazia finally couldn't resist looking up. Xelloss had both eyes open, none of the mockery in either pose or expression.

"What do you mean?"

"My liege thinks she is the Sage of Siephied. Shouldn't that earn her some respect?"

"Sages are not gods anymore than Knights are," Milgazia said.

"But your gods aren't gods in the sense that they care for you either. You would do well to consider where your alliance lies : with your ideals, or with the mathematical facts of which piece of Siephied is bigger."

"Go away. Nothing you can tell me can lead to anything good."

He actually did it. Milgazia clenched his fists. Anything would have been easier. A mocking goodbye, laughter.

Xelloss had been here in all earnestness. What did that mean? What purpose would he have for telling him that Lassandra figure was the Sage of Siephied? Probably some deceptive game, but what? The worst kind of scheme was the type one knew was being played, yet couldn't do anything against.

That just left one little tail, which Memphis soon came to announce. The elf burst into his tent, Sylphiel at her hand.

"Hey, uncle. It's okay if we're going to give Sylphy a lift home, right?" she blared. "That piece of junk just came by to tell Sylphy that he's going to be too busy to bring her home."

"I don't really want to be a problem, I could just go ask at the Vusang temple—"

"Don't be silly! You can come with us and you can cook for us to pay us back! My dad always complains about my diet, but I like your way, so we can compromise! Right uncle?"

"Gnnnrrghh. It is fine with me, Memphy. Now please, let me sleep."

He dreamed of a world that had always been without gods.

**· · · · · · ·**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Soon may mean something entirely different for the author than for the audience.


	18. Filia's Beacon

**· · · · · · ·**

Filia and Ragradia trained in dream, always within the safe convinces of magic and a cottage garden. This night, though, there was a gate in the fence that wouldn't stay closed. A draft of wind would swing it open, small red flames licking at the woodwork.

Curiosity expended little effort to make Filia step through, only to find a wasteland of ashes on the other side. Filia cross it in a few hours backward, finding the source of the invitation : Luna Inverse sat with her back against the giant plush Siephied. The blood came from the stitches of the plush, whose fur peeled back to reveal skewered flesh. Little rows of blood ran down her face, she did nothing to wipe them away. In fact, she didn't move at all.

With one slow step at the time, and apprehension in her heart, Filia knelt before her.

"Luna?" Filia shook her shoulder, soft at first. "Luna!"

Luna's head drooped to the side, bangs revealing one red eye. When Filia moved back, it followed her.

"What are you doing here?" Ragradia asked.

Filia stood to face her. The god had donned her old hag form, but her expressions had moved beyond the endless smiling. Her lips were drawn, her brow low.

"Did you know Luna was ill? I need to go to her," Filia said.

"Luna will be fine."

"She is _not_ fine," Filia hissed. "Help me find her. If I just have a clear sensation of where to teleport to, I can make it!"

"Here or there will make no difference. Luna will sort herself out, but if she comes to Sailoon, we may get negative attention."

"Is that so? I'd take you a lot more serious if you'd trust me with _why_ that is."

The answer was stubborn silence.

"Are you afraid of what we can do when we're together?"

"There's nothing you will learn unless we want you to," Ragradia said. "Even if you and Luna can defy the influence of gods, I now know how you do it. That's the weakness you invited when you asked me to help you train. Speaking of this, why don't we return to that? Learning to by conscious on all levels will be a lot more useful than risky teleportation schemes."

The ashland grew green as Ragradia brought rain in, but Filia shut it off.

"If miss Luna can wander into dreams because of her godly power, I should be able to do it too. If you're not helping me, then get out."

"You're—"

Filia rammed her soul gate shut for Ragradia, but kept the flow open for Luna.

Did she actually _need_ a god's guidance? The piece of Valwin's power lay untouched, perhaps she could use some of that power.

The piece had little concrete form, but now she thought of it as a cloak to wear, it slipped around her sense of self. She opened a gate in her soul and just like that, she stepped out.

She'd expected to see Claire in her true form, but the astral plane was murky and dark, if it could be called anything at all. Trying to see was useless. Xelloss had told her once that he could detect the physical plane (she'd asked him whether he ever accidentally projection into something solid) but to Filia there was nothing but the vaguest glimmer of the surrounding lifeforms.

Her own body glowed with holy power, a thin, barely visible thread connected her to her body. With a small tug, this thread evaporated into only flow.

In the opposite direction, the fragmented flow tying her to Luna offered something peculiar. While nothing here had a color till she decided on it, Luna's trace shone red. Siephied's power? No, as she let the flow pull her along, it proved something different. The red force actually embedded Siephied's power.

Letting the flow pull her along, she passed out of the temple. Filia almost lost herself in the mass of citizens beyond the palace gates, a dense field of astral forms milling about without any landmark. If not for the red path, she would have lost Luna's trace.

She did her best not to look at anyone, as it was rather embarrassing. Without walls, there was no way she couldn't invade people's privacy. She sped on.

Outside of Sailoon's holy seal, when all semblance of format was gone, remaining was a hollow. No noise, sight, touch, no up or down, no weight, no balance, nothing beyond the holy path and the occasional ghostly astral form. What little astral forms remained, animals, wasn't enforced anymore by the clear flow of the holy seal. Here was a world devoid of any gods where the first cracks of the divine rampage already showed.

All her senses expanded, her mind desperate for something to grasp onto. Anything to give herself definition, but there wasn't enough.

With a start, she woke up. Almost she transformed.

The world was in place again, the bed below, the sound of her blood flow and heart beat which normally passed by unnoticed. A small, cold hand touched her arm, Filia resisted the urge the grab the person and hold them close.

"That is too risky for you," Claire whispered. "Your mind does not encompass any concepts to help you keep your mind whole on the astral plane. If you were an astral being, you'd be destroyed now."

"I'm sleeping in this temple exactly because I need to get better at the dealings of gods," Filia said. "How do stay whole?"

Claire shook her head. "Really, Luna will be alright. I can tell how she and Lyos are all doing, they haven't succumb to the madness like Valwin and Vrabazard. What illness you detect is simply an issue with their consumption of miasma. I am already linking to the Knight of the Aqualord to teach him how to do it."

"But you haven't succeeded yet?"

"Well, no, but I will."

"That's all the more reason for me to bring those two here." She took Claire's hand. "You once trusted us dragons to fight in your wars. Trust me now when I say that if you abandon them, neither I nor Luna nor Lyos will feel you are a god worth serving."

"I have to act in the best interest of as many lives as possible, you know that."

"If it goes wrong, I'll teleport them away from Sailoon. I'll stay with them at all times, for extra security. I can handle it. Ragradia, Claire, you've known miss Lina. We mortals can make a difference for the better, even if it's not a guided effort under a god's hand."

"You ask me to take such a risk?"

Filia slapped her on the top of the head, just enough to be felt. "I'm asking you to stop being a stubborn mule who is obsessed with relying on only her own wisdom."

Claire rubbed the top of her head, pouting. "You make no sense. I'm clearly relying on Sailoon to be a good army."

Filia crossed her arms and legs, eyes bearing down on her. "That's using your own advice. You won't take any from anyone else! Honestly, you're an idiot. Even a child could have told you the war would drain your food source."

"Is the insult to a past version of my self meant to provoke me into obliging your risky idea?" Not a flinch or even a raised voice; Filia's eye twitched.

"Hnnnngh! Can you really not think outside of the box? People like I and miss Amelia who will just help you because aren't common. You need to work a little to earn people's loyalty. If you help miss Luna and mister Lyos now, they might want to return a favor. There, is that logical enough for you?"

"I already have Lyos's loyalty. I don't need Luna's."

Filia flopped back on bed. This was about as fruitful as trying to reason with Xelloss.

Hmm ... perhaps she needed the same tactics for all astral beings, and it happened to be so Claire was a far cry from Xelloss's power level. She could get away with a lot more provocation.

"If you don't help me get to miss Luna, I will try it myself. Maybe I'll damage myself somehow. Who knows. I hope you don't need me in the future."

"The difference between your need to make everyone happy and mine is logic versus self-satisfaction. You'd do something rash and dangerous just to get that obnoxious little feeling of compassion out of your mind. Learn this : Luna Inverse isn't worth the effort because she is contrary to compassion."

"Excuse me if I don't trust a god's opinion on the value of life, Aqualord."

"Claire will do. Also, your imagination will do."

"What?"

"You treat the astral plane like space rather than mind. Define yourself with fantasy, and the plane with paths. Don't bother with logic."

Before Filia could reply, magic pulled her into sleep. Why exactly Ragradia had agreed was a question for later. She was back before her open soul gate. Ragradia's power pulled her out. Filia had difficulty seeing herself still, if only because her self image had two equally true definitions. The paths were easier to go on.

Ragradia let her go at the edge of Sailoon, leaving her with the thought of speed, or merely the sensation. If she thought of this plane in her own way, she could ride her imagination as a chariot.

Flarelord Siephied was the sun to her candle of power. Whatever time existed had no point here. She followed a path for a short or long time until she came across a devil. She dodged, carrying herself over the flow quicker than they managed. She met more, all confused at what she was, some attacked. She was always quicker, they were always weaker.

As the devils thinned, a holy haze thickened. Filia could still navigate it, aligned to holiness herself, but it was difficult.

In the center, surrounding by a group of mortals, were two forms that felt like gods, but writhed like monsters. Sick in sense and form, they had a clear form for her to see : one a draconic skeleton with peeled off flesh, the other moist bundle of guts sewn together like a serpentine dragon. Though she had no body, nausea took her over.

"Luna?"

Abruptly, both turned to her.

"I'm here," Filia tried to say. "Let me see that power near you, Luna. I'm sure I can use it to teleport to you if I understand it."

The ribs moved aside, revealing nothing human inside, but there was a ruby shard. Forcing her own form into hands, or perhaps forming hands because she associated it with touch, she brushed a finger across the strange power.

Magic without words, the essence of the world. This shard was like the barrier of souls, but instead of binding a person, it bound this world.

The second she had done what she'd come for, she was pulled back.

**· · · · · · ·**

The next morning was sunny in a way that complimented Sailoon, or perhaps it was the other way around. The sheer power of optimism, as radiated by Amelia and the other priestesses, poured into everything. Usually Zelgadis was amongst the few grumpily resistant, but Filia was a serious contender this morning. It took all her effort to not let her face drop into her cereal bowl, so tired she was.

Her body was fine, it was her mind that had gone without rest. Ragradia had mentioned a cap on their nocturnal lessons so her brain had time to process. She hadn't realized how serious that was. She'd dragged herself through a summary to Amelia a few hours ago, before falling asleep on the spot. Now she felt a little better, but hardly good.

Zelgadis, true to his habit of intense slinking, slipped in through a corner window of the temple. He just barely had enough time to mutter, "This better not be a trick to make me go to the gala," before Amelia noticed him. She glomped him, which added a blush to Zelgadis and a wave of giggling to the priestesses at the table.

When they detangled, he asked, "What's Filia doing here?"

"Miss Filia and miss Claire have been practicing new magic here," Amelia said, guiding him to the table. "Tonight she saw miss Luna is in trouble."

"Is that why she looks like she's seen a ghost?" Everyone gave him a look. "I mean, if she were someone not used to seeing ghosts or exorcising them or ... look, you get what I mean."

"I went to the astral plane," Filia said. "What I saw of her there was horrific."

Zelgadis blinked twice. "No way. You can't _go_ to the astral plane. You're always there already."

Filia held up her hand. "I know, I know. I'm tired. I think ... I think I transplanted my awareness into a projection onto the astral plane."

Zelgadis took a seat opposite of her. "Tell me everything."

She covered the ray that hit Claire, the strange flare in power that preceded it and her visit to Luna. For some things Zelgadis had no concept, being no priest. Amelia did her best to fill him in, but was often at loss as well. Filia's impatience to leave already made her rush, and Zelgadis often asked her to backtrack.

"It may be that when the gods prepared you as Siephied's channel, they did something more complex than simply expand your bucket capacity," he finally said. "Since in your dreams you lack full reasoning ability, it didn't occur to you to find this peculiar. It may be part of your power now, so I'm willing to take the risk you can teleport on that power."

"Neither you nor—" Amelia stepped on her chair, planted a foot on the table and there came the finger of justice.

"Off course we're coming along, miss Filia! We will not abandon miss Lina's sister to the devils!" At this, the other priestesses broke into cheers.

"Point being, whatever did not happen to Claire did happen to Luna. Also, I'm eager to find out more." Zelgadis shoved a letter across the table, neatly inscribed by Sylphiel. "I just came from Sylphiel's family. She disappeared two days ago, having left only a suspicious note. I've been trying to find any trace of her, no luck so far."

Amelia took the letter, opened it and frowned. "Miss Sylphiel wouldn't just randomly get up and disappear to pursue some surprise. Did she even pack?"

"Not enough to justify a long journey. Her neighbors saw someone who fits Xelloss's description," Zelgadis said. "He must have taken her away shortly after he left the palace. I'm also worried about the fact that he talked to you, Filia. If Xelloss is volunteering information, he's no longer in control of the situation. Zelas probably isn't either. I say we take some things back into our hands. Sailoon is already involved anyway."

"Exactly!" Amelia said. She stepped onto the table, pointed at the heavens and called, "Come on, girls, let's give miss Filia a boost!"

**· · · · · · ·**

Amelia's fellow priestesses helped turn the temple into a beacon, allowing for safe jumping point. The other ended end depended entirely on Filia and the red trail. The whole procedure passed by almost too easily; given the way Sailoon operated, Filia half expected Philionel to just _know_ his daughter was about to skip off again. No huge men burst through the door, however, and so Filia, Amelia and Zelgadis popped off to the other side of the globe.

The serene interior of the holy temple was exchanged for a face full of freezing fog.

" _Windtool spirits, gather your power in my hand! Demon Wind_!" Zelgadis chanted at once.

The cloud dissipated only a little before returned to its former density.

"It's no use, Zelgadis," Amelia said. "This cloud is summoned by holy magic stronger than a shamanic spell."

"I see. Filia, fly lower."

She again got wave of unpleasantness, this time the sting of of devil aura, smoke and bloodlust. Below them was a burning city.

At this sight Amelia nearly jumped off, but Zelgadis pulled her back.

"Wait! We need to know first what's going on. Filia, circle the city," he said.

She obliged. It had been a harbor city once, but. The streets were mostly motionless save for flames, but more than a few humanoids lay on the pavement.

"That gate near the hill bottom is about to be breached. Once they've got that gate, the city will flood. Now there ..." Zelgadis pointed at at a the seaside battle. "That's their secondary diversion. They pretended to flood the main gate, then attacked from the sea, but their real objective is that third gate. All those lesser demons will be able to fit through it. From there on, the larger devils in the woods will move in. There's two things I don't understand : nobody seems to be holding the gate, and why some of those higher ranked devils don't cross the astral plane?"

"Something holy is embedded in the walls," Amelia said. "Right, miss Filia?"

"Yes, I feel it too. Do you have a plan, mister Zelgadis?"

"Amelia and I will deal with the gate. Filia, bring as much people as possible onto those ships. We can buy time, but the city won't hold for much longer."

"Understood." Filia swooped across the small gate.

" _Ray Wing_!" Zelgadis and Amelia were off to the ground, the Rah Tilts starting the moment they touched down.

Filia turned to the harbor, which had a rocky plateau to the right and beach to the left. Close to the rockhall was the most intense clutter of combat. Filia skimmed the rocks and landed on an abandoned market. Some of the devils projected as squids, molluscmen, distorted stingrays or ridiculous tropical fish, but her senses told her a great deal was on the astral plane. Whatever they fought couldn't be a human.

As a golden dragon, she stood out sorely against the flames and curse magic. A chunk of the devils broke off to flock Filia and she readied her laserbreath. Before she shot even once, a red hit wave burned away all the devils.

Filia now clearly felt Luna's power, but a collapsed building prevented her from seeing.

On all four, she carefully walked closer. The flames didn't harm her, but she was worried she might step on Luna, who probably lay somewhere in a heap, at the end of her powers. What had happened just now was probably a last power expulsion, she couldn't imagine any other reason Luna would have allowed herself to be cornered like that.

"Miss Luna?"

"Hey, Filia! Didn't hit you, did I?" It was Luna's voice alright, but it came from all directions. Every piece of the city soaked with her power echoed it.

"No, you didn't."

"Not why do you feel so uncertain?"

"I'm worried for you. All those devils flocking you—"

"I was just having some fun, but can't have these things eat you."

When she reached the top of the ruins, fire leaked around her, she stopped dead in her track.

Before her writhed a ghostly entity, its only fixed point a skull and an open ribcage. Everything else was distorted arms, scaled wings and two dozen red eyes without socket, constantly fading and emerging elsewhere. Everything about it felt holy, but it was a rotten holiness. Inside of the ribcage, Luna hung like a rag doll. Powers flared around her, ruffling the bangs. Luna's eyes were wide open and mad.

A shiver ran across Filia's back, revolt taking over. Devils were just infuriating, whatever had happened here was downright sickening. This would have happened to Ragradia too?

"Miss Luna, I came to bring you to Sailoon ..." she started in a weak voice.

"Good, let's go. Valwin's been a poor host," she said without moving her lips.

Filia forced herself back to her senses. "We need to help the citizens evacuate first. Mister Zelgadis says we should take it to the sea, the main forces are all coming from the land."

"Ah, right. That's cause of the sea, it's ours. Lyos did it." A massive claw manifested before Filia's nose, pointing at the clutter on the beach. "You might wanna go get him. He's in one of those hazes, we don't think straight during'em ..."

"Alright," Filia said, hesitated. "Will you work on getting people on the ships? Are there any survivors at all?"

"Yeah, in the warehouse behind me. Boats, you said? I'll handle it. Get Lyos," Luna said.

Filia nodded, trying not to let the thought off all that death get to her? Only one warehouse of people left alive? She should have arrived earlier.

Whatever sickness affected Luna and Lyos distorted the flow of the area to the extend Filia couldn't just teleport to the beach, or even feel anything beyond that cold cloud around the city.

She fried a squidshark with her laserbreath, knocked away a dotted seagul and planted herself before the young man with the unruly blue hair.

Confused, he blinked at the sudden gold wall before him, poking at it with his sword. His hands weren't human, but draconic claws, and lines of blood ran from his lips; he'd bitten himself with fangs.

"This isn't a devil ..." An actual devil that tried to attack him from behind vaporized in a tendril of water.

"I'm Filia, we share a friend in miss Lina. Listen, we need to get back to the docks and cover for the escape of citizens."

"Uh-huh," he said without looking up. His voice didn't come from everywhere, but did carry an echo from the sea. "Right."

He took a sprint around around her, further away from the harbor, skewering devils left and right. Filia shot down a few herself, all the while invoking Holy Rezast straight out of her mind. The circle just barely took below Lyos, he almost moved on before she could cut away the strange pain.

Faltering in his speed, he fell to his knees. The flow around him calmed down and carried away whatever he felt. With a shudder, he started breathing like a human again. Good gods, what had happened to him. Filia morphed to human form, raised a protective shield around them and softly shook his shoulder.

"Mister Lyos, can you understand me?"

He looked up like he only now saw her. The claws turned to hands, and the holiness remembered to heal his body.

"I ... what are you doing?"

"This is a Holy Rezast based spell, it diminished negative emotions in the area. I thought it'd help you calm down."

"It's more than that," he muttered, face turned down to his hands and sword. "I think we were eating miasma ..."

His head snapped up and he shot to his feet, grabbing Filia's shoulder. "Orun. Are the others okay? Have you seen them?"

"I haven't see anyone but miss Luna, but she said there were people in a warehouse."

Lyos nodded. "What's that escape plan you mentioned?"

"We head out to sea. Mister Zelgadis and miss Amelia are warding off an invasion from the land, we don't have much time."

Lyos clutched a hand in his hair. "Damn, they were diverting me! Okay ... Amelia's here, you said?"

"Yes, we're bringing you all to Sailoon as soon as I can teleport again."

"Alright. Go support those two, I'll take care of the rest."

Filia nodded before transforming back into dragon.

Amelia and Zelgadis had scattered the devil flocks, and those that had slipped in over the sea were thinned out, likely by Luna. She got the chimeras up to date with the progress and helped them drive apart the devils. Before long, they could move closed to the harbor, a line of devils on their trail. A line, but no legion.

A wall of water near the warehouse indicated Lyos was already busy securing the people. They closed their circle of defense to the warehouse, covering the miserably low number of people streaming from it. Humans and beast folk alike came out, many of them injured. Devils had gotten to them as well, it was a miracle they'd survived this long. How much of a miracle was up in the air, Filia had no idea of their original number.

Luna fought further down the harbor, but she didn't shield. Though she could produce shockwaves that killed only devils, she chose to destroy them one by one. Luna's smirk never was pleasant, but the longer Filia saw it, the more it disturbed her.

While firing away whatever devil approached her, Filia got halfway through cast another Holy Rezast. Luna skipped over to her, whacking her on the head hard. "Don't. I like it this way."

"Mister Lyos said that the miasma—"

"I'm twice his strength. I can eat just fine. You work on the boat," she said, nodding at a carrack. "Don't dare to do anything to my emotions."

"If you say so ..."

"You go back. They'll focus on me."

Reluctantly, she rejoined the chimeras, providing cover for the path between warehouse and carrack. They all fit. Zelgadis called Lyos over, commanded him to use all his power to steer the waves so the carrack would move out. There was very little further effort needed once they were in the haze, where devils saw virtually nothing.

Luna was right, the devils kept their focus on her. Filia recalled Luna telling her, years ago, that her power level meant the only chance weaker devils had was by depriving her human body of sleep.

Filia was positive Luna wasn't thinking clear. Maybe she could cast Holy Rezast from this distance, using Lyos's haze as conduit ... but it wasn't so easy now Luna had made it clear she didn't want. This was absolutely an emergy ... but to be honest, not enough of an emergency to justify ignoring her words.

Instead, Filia flew back to the harbor, calling, "Miss Luna! We need to leave!"

She landed on a pier and turned to human form. No response from Luna, save for for the silent head atop the skull turning frightened eyes her way.

"The others are safe now, miss Luna. We need to leave."

"Just a little more," Luna said with two voices. "I've almost emptied the net."

A flare of power pulsed through the ground and the shielding cloud above the city, that was when Filia understood.

These devils were trapped. The moment they entered the area, there was no leaving. All they could do was fight, even after they found out this enemy was beyond them. They weren't flocking, they were desperate. Luna reeled them into those long tentacles and killed them most slowly than she needed to. No battle at all, this was a buffet of poison.

With a pained shriek, another devil was drawn near. Filia balled her fists, took a deep breath, and jumped at Luna. Filia had the power of a dragon over Luna's human self. Putting a heavy jolt of exorcism and healing magic, she moved through the ghostly corpse, grabbed Luna by the shoulder and pulled her down.

Luna's legs were too weak to stand, she took a knee. Filia set a hand on her shoulder to keep her down.

"What do you think you're doing?" Luna drawled. "That hurt."

Filia answered with a healing spell, turning Luna's own holiness back into her body. The surrounding devils saw a chance to flee.

"Filia, I don't like this," Luna said. The deep sense of a threat lingered all around Filia, but she ignored it. Xelloss had been by so often she was used to unpleasant auras.

"Well, too bad. You don't want a temporary amputation of whatever sick emotions drive you right now, so I used physical force," Filia said calmly, letting go of Luna's shoulder so she had an extra hand for healing. "I must admit I prefer that over messing with minds, as I believe is your preference for dealing with naughty people as well."

Luna chuckled. "Touché."

Once Luna was healed enough that she could stand on her human legs, Filia transformed back to a dragon.

Luna climbed on her back, and Filia took off. "No teleportation?"

"I can't navigate this area due to the flow distortions. Besides, I'll need to rebuild my power before I can teleport everyone back to Sailoon."

"Okay," Luna said before laying back down, crossing her legs. "Go up, find some sun. You eat, I sunbathe."

"Honestly, miss Luna! This is not the time! I'd like to see whether everyone is alright."

Luna shrugged, but didn't get up until Filia was over the ship. Just before Filia shrinking down, Luna jumped off.

A green wolfman waited on deck, when Luna landed he eagerly jumped up. He fussed over her, but she brushed him off in her casual way.

Around the deck, frightened people huddled together, but most had to be below deck already. Lyos sat in a mast, still controlling the waves, while Amelia finished casting a shipwide Resurrection.

On the stern of the ship, Zelgadis spoke with a brown woman with wild white hair. Filia joined them.

"The way they acted, they really liked killing," the woman said. "Lyos had a few moments of clarity, but it didn't last long. Sometimes, they seemed to forget entirely about us. I don't understand why."

"They were poisoned on miasma," Filia said.

The woman let go a breath of relief. "Thank goodness. I thought the pillar had done something to them."

"I'll bet you that it was the cause of this," Zelgadis said. "Anyway, Orun, this is Filia."

"Thank you, all of you, for coming to our aid," Orun said, inclining her head. Filia didn't doubt she meant it, but she was stiff with tension.

"It's alright, what else would we do?" Filia said. Zelgadis looked away, clearly embarrassed. "It's okay, mister Zelgadis. Go find yourself a guitar, we're safe now and you can return to your brooding berserker act."

"I don't do that," Zelgadis muttered. "Anyway, can we expect more of those devil armies?"

"Maybe," Orun said. She explained how they'd taken refuge in the city to take care of their exhausted and injured, because the devils allowed them no rest on the road. Luna had figured out how to embed the city with magic, enough to give some reprise in the attacks, but the enemy had soon changed tactics. Only the fact Lyos and Luna pushed themselves to the limit had allowed them to survive at all. Those two didn't eat or sleep anymore, which worried Orun as much as it did Filia.

"They probably pushed themselves into chimera territory. Astral beings tied to mortal souls aren't automatically chimera, but can become so. Hence the difference between Garv and Shabranigdu's hosts. Lyos!" Zelgadis called up. "Did anything change about your personality after that pillar?"

Lyos shrugged. "I don't know. I eat emotions now, I can't really stop it. If anyone changed about my personality, I can't just tell."

"I don't think you're very different, mister Lyos," Amelia piped up. Slowly, she climbed up the stern, where she sat down on the top step. Tired, but satisfied. "You know miss Luna better than we do, miss Filia. Is she the same?"

"I think so. She was a little addicted to the negative miasma, but not to the extend of mister Lyos."

"Good. If we can't expect anyone to go berserk, we should focus on getting everyone some in top shape in case any new legions show up. Filia, got a time estimate on when you can teleport again?"

"It may take a day or so. If mister Lyos can make a hole in his fog shield, I could feed on the sunlight."

"Can do!" Lyos called. He opened a gap, only for them to look at twilight. "Ehm, you can do that tomorrow, right?"

"No choice," Zelgadis said. "Everyone, get this place in order. We'll talk tomorrow."

They dispersed, but Filia remained on the stern to feed on the wind instead. This was part pretense, she needed some time alone to think.

No one would go berserk. That nagged at her.

The three most prominent people in her life all had inclined to wanton violence because of supernatural afflictions to their mind. Taking Xelloss's jumbled "Milgazia's humor is a distortion of reality" for true, that left Val alone as the one most truly himself when he did it, and the one person she had most expected to listen if she implored. Val had not listened, and had caused the most damage.

It would be easy to blame that she knew what to say to Luna and Xelloss, but not to Val because he didn't know everything. It would be an easy lie. She hadn't said anything special to either of them. But Val ... she hadn't even tried hard to speak him out of it. She'd known on some level it wouldn't have worked, just like nothing she could say reached Valgarv.

Her son should have been the one to listen. If not for those mythical tales where light conquers dark, then because he was her family. Why hadn't it worked?

**· · · · · · ·**

Filia claimed a spot to sleep on the lower deck, hoping to not only restore her power for teleportation, but also to visit Luna in her dreamscape. They needed to talk, yet she was alone. She tried reaching Ragradia, but the flow didn't cooperate. Luna and Lyos were too poisoned still, they interfered.

She woke, buried deep in her blankets. There wasn't much comfort here, on this rocking ship where the flow was broken. It would have been nice to get a hot tea with Elena right now, maybe some midnight snack. A lot of things would be nicer than this right now.

A holy source moved above the deck, either Luna or Lyos. Careful not to wake anyone, she slipped out of bed. She was in her dress still, lacking anything else, but left the cloak in favor of the thick blanket.

On deck, she found Luna in the light she was named after, but with none of the mood to match. The woman was using projections to tidy up the unruly deck.

At her curiosity, Luna said, "This ship is a mess when it doesn't have to be."

"Why aren't you sleeping. You've been awake too long already!"

"Heh. I _can't_ sleep anymore," she said. She spun a lifebelt around her arm before she kicked it away. It rolled neatly to the side even when it should have wobbled over. "But hey, at the sacrifice of sleep, I get these nice new ways to use my power. Where would I have been if I couldn't tamper with inertia?"

"I could try to cast a sleep spell on you. I know five different types, meant to induce different sleep types. You can—"

"Nope. I bet it'd just dissolve. If I can't steer it, why would you?"

"Hmm." Filia pulled up her blanket. "I think you underestimate my spells. Miss Luna, what I saw of you on the astral plane indicates a serious problem. You looked distorted, like you were a devil!"

"You're so needlessly dramatic. Did you really think I'd lost it? What an insult! I've always looked like that."

"Miss Luna, we're dabbling with powers that affect the mind directly. I've grown to expect problems and if you truly cannot filter the emotions you eat, well, there's a problem already."

"Heh, don't worry. I _will_ figure out the optimal way to exist like this and then, I'll get back to you about sleep."

"I'm glad that you're dealing with it, but please don't overtax yourself. You've never been through anything like this."

"Don't coddle me," she said the way one spoke of not needing an umbrella for a drizzle.

Had this been a dream, a booming voice would have announced whatever Luna really felt. Yet only the wind and the waves could be heard. Filia pulled her blanket a little higher.

"Well ... off course, but I tried reaching you in dreams because it would be easier to show you everything I need to tell you."

"Just tell me." Luna set aside what she had gathered and leaned against the mast. Filia stood at her side, following her gaze towards a distant storm partially visible over the holy mist. The clouds had a strange, stacked form, like windstreaked from multiple directions. Lightning danced at the bottom.

"Is that —"

"Valwin."

"I've been told the other gods had gone mad, but I hadn't thought they'd act this drastic."

"Who told you?"

"I'll get to that. First, Zelas knows where your sister is. Miss Lina is part of the plot, though I do not know how voluntary," Filia said. "Second, Aqualord Ragradia's remanant has been reincarnated into a living creature, she's with us now. Third, Zelas intends to use Sailoon's forces to guard an unknown location during a future conflict."

Luna nodded across the sea. "I'll bet you that location was the source of that pillar. In fact, this whole lot is part of it too, the villagers and the shard," Luna said, tapping those odd silver shoulderbands. "I was never meant to visit Valwin, they just made a little vial to brew something in."

"It's a shard of the world's staff, I think," Filia said. "She's creating an angelsblood talisman, I've learned about them in the temple. Would you like it out?"

Another nod from Luna. Aside of a slightly clenched jaw, there wasn't much to indicate what she really felt about this situation.

"Say ... Filia ... this is big. We need leverage, but we can't get that if we don't eve know what's going on? Do you think you can enter an astral soul, the way I got into your mind?"

"An astral being's mind works very differently than ours," Filia said. "They do not dream. They only can enter our dreams by sending in a little bit of their power and we have to learn how to open the gate for this. I doubt it."

"But you want to try. I know it. We can't exactly fly over to that pillar's source and expect to change anything, but we can dig into minds. We just need to find a way."

"I've been learning some things from Ragradia," she said. "But I'm not sure what I want to use it for."

"I'll capture us a devil," Luna said. "Right now. There's some around."

"Miss Luna, I'm all for learning the truth, but I don't have this kind of power yet, if it's possible at all! I'm tired and I'd much rather try to cast a sleep spell on both of us."

"I have a better idea. You shut up about sleep and we stop pretending the ground is more than just a tad scorched."

Before Filia got in another word, Luna jumped off the ship, landing on something invisible. Like this, she ran across the surface. Filia was too tired to figure out how she did it. She disappeared into the fog, but not for long.

When she stepped back aboard, she brought the sensation of a devil. Though Filia couldn't see it, the weak signature indicated there wasn't anything to fear.

"Come on, just experiment a bit."

Luna did something magical, invisible but clear to the senses. The devil manifested in the form of a frightened ammonite-like creature. It couldn't even talk, unless there was a language in the spluttering sounds. Slimy tentacles flayed around, trying to get away from the pincer Luna had run through its shell. More than loathsome, it was pitiable.

Filia reached out, unsure of what exactly to do. Maybe she could try putting herself into vision mode, and astrally stepping out ...

It occurred to her there had been captured devils in Kataart. She had never minded _that_ much.

Quickly, she pulled back her hand.

"What? Try it." Carried on that voice was a command that bore down into her mind. In a failing attempt to block out the flow, to feel Luna's compulsion a little less, she crossed her arms over her chest and breathed out.

"Come on, Filia."

This creature before her would likely go on and cause pain, but did that give her a right to abuse and even kill it? She would have had no doubt ten years ago, but now she knew Xelloss. For all his irritating habits and amoral nature, he did more for the world than against it. Who was she to decide this wasn't another one of those defective devils?

"What are you afraid of? It's safe. _Do it_." Luna's voice took on a threatening edge. The more Filia reeled against it, the more she realized something supernatural was happening. It frightened her, not just because it took away a little of her agency, but also what it could turn her into.

She didn't move, but quietly invoked Holy Rezast and tried to cut away this odd compulsion to obey Luna. It didn't work, only her anxiety disappeared, leaving the pleasant sensation of obliging a god.

Luna smirked. "Good call. Now focus."

She really, really wanted to obey Luna. It felt so _right_.

Then again, being angry at customers and Xelloss also felt right, but she knew it made her do things that were wrong.

Filia took a few steps away.

"What?" Luna snapped.

"I don't want to go this far. I have no idea what I'm doing, I'll probably end up killing him, and there is nothing we can learn from this one's mind. It's just a random devil."

Luna stayed still, save for her smirk turning to a thin line.

"Why not? Why are you afraid?"

"I think that being near you is doing something to _my_ mind."

"Explain."

"I used to describe the feeling that Xelloss and other devils gave me as deep evil, and the presence of the gods as good. The latter still feels like that, but in my mind I know they are something else. It's just a feeling. Right now, your powers give me that feeling and tempt me to agree with you."

"Well ... damn." Luna's arms slacked. More than any time before, Filia wished to know what was behind this seeming resignation.

Luna didn't move further, so Filia added, "I can't do this, miss Luna. Even if I could honestly believe they were all relentless murderers, I can't do _this_."

"You were fine with is when we experimented on Valwin."

"That was just a piece of his power. This would be torture."

"Fine." Luna's projected tentacles pierced into the devil, who shrieked so loud Filia couldn't bear it. Quickly, she grabbed the devil away from Luna.

Calmly, Luna tilted her head aside, revealing her eyes. "You're an idiot, Filia. It's not going to thank you for that. It's going to kill someone."

Fear wormed into Filia's mind, combing the godly compulsion and the old indoctrination about obeyed those holier than herself. Perhaps Luna didn't do it consciously, but the effect was the same.

Filia threw the devil back into the sea, it vanished before it even hit the water.

"It's not about gratitude, it's about life," she said.

"Retard." Luna turned on her heel and continued cleaning the deck, leaving Filia in uncertainty.

Part of Filia wanted to tell her about all she was learning from Ragradia and that there were other ways to become wiser, but another part felt this wasn't really the point they disagreed on.

After knowing the open Luna of the dreamscapes, seeing her like this now was uncanny. She didn't know what thoughts went on behind that cold mask, but knew it could be vicious or indifferent or cruel joy. The book was closed, like her entire life at the temple had been.

**· · · · · · ·**

When Filia woke again, it was to the scent of fried fish. Yawning, she got up and joined the crown on the sunny upper deck.

Someone has somehow caught a load of seafood, the fish of which was currently prepared by that green wolf guy, who turned out to be a decent cook. The other villagers helped out, some preparing spices from seaweeds, others boiling clams in small pots, and to the right a few women choppedsmaller fish into pieces for a soup.

The first familiar face was Zelgadis, who leaned against a mast in an intense session of brooding or glaring.

"Good morning, miss Filia!" Amelia said as she darted by. "Isn't it wonderful? Nobody will be hungry soon. There's even octopus!"

She couldn't help but smile, even as she felt the opposite of wonderful. "As good as it can be, I suppose. Did mister Lyos catch all this food? I don't see him around ..."

"He's using his water powers to fish," she said. "Speaking of powers, how are yours?"

"I'll have to make separate trips, but I think we can have everyone safe in Sailoon by evening."

"Great!" And Amelia darted off to wrestle a five meter octopos. In doing so, she came near the wolfman, who had been seconds away from being grabbed by said octopus. Zelgadis tensed up at once.

Looming. He was definitely looming, all the more now his princess was near that wolf person.

Filia took a seat on a crate near him. "Good morning, mister Zelgadis. May I ask why you're so tense?"

"Yes," he said through gritted teeth. "That hybrid, he and I used to work for Lezo. When I defected, Dirgear was the only one of our team who remained loyal to him. I thought we had killed him, but it does not surprise me he's alive, what with his regenerative powers. What I _can't_ put my finger on is why he is with Luna Inverse. Do you know anything about that?"

"No, but she did say something about trolls working for her once. Maybe she likes to take in criminals and reform them?"

"Hmm. Keep your eyes open."

"Watch out!" Amelia called.

Filia and Zelgadis leaned back while the octopus sailed past them, curtsy of Amelia's toss. She jumped after it, grabbed it in a locked hold and knocked it out. In the name of his coolness, Zelgadis tried not showing a loving smile when she dragged it past, and failed very badly.

Lyos brought in more, turning the decks into a banquet. Little bit by little, all hundred and eighty one people aboard were fed. There were a more smiles, and a little less crying. It never quite became cheerful, but it would get better. Amelia didn't even offer refuge in Sailoon, she assumed it was natural.

Orun and Lyos were pleasant enough people, the latter's attitude reminded Filia a little of Lina. Together, they led two parts of an annexed village : warriors and forgers. It didn't take long after learning of the Zenaffa armor project that the whispers went about they could find new work in Sailoon, which Amelia was all too glad to accept.

Zelgadis was less enthusiastic, but didn't say anything. He prepared a room in the stern for private conversation and waited for Amelia, Filia, Luna and Lyos. Dirgear followed Luna, which Zelgadis grudgingly put up with so he wouldn't make trouble elsewhere.

They set around the table, which was well lit by the rising sun, though with Zelgadis at the head it was more like a cross examination room. Everyone was barely seated before he started.

"That pillar is meant to either summon the gods or drive them to madness," Zelgadis said. "We may not know why, but the how is a problem. I got a look at the surrounding land when I was at the city's edge. All the plantlife is dead. Is that all Valwin's work?"

"Yeah, he's been flying around at random," Lyos said. "Everywhere he manifests, he chokes the life out of the place. The city we arrived in was littered with corpses, Luna burned them to prevent infections. Valwin avoids places where the flow is disturbed, including the places he himself disturbed. That's why we went there."

"Was this part of Zelas and Rangort's plan?"

Orun shook her head. "No. Zelas's siblings have found the method and took control of it."

"But it _was_ intended to reel in the gods?"

"Sort of," Lyos said with a shrug. "It's all in the wrong order, though. We just needed them in one place, going bonkers is really not useful."

"Now that the gods are cut off from the flow, doesn't that mean they won't be able to read any minds? Can't you tell us more?" Filia asked.

"This is true, but only insofar unattached entities are concerned. Those who hold a piece of the gods are still liable. I don't know where you got that piece of Valwin's power, miss Filia, but that only increases the risk," Orun said.

"So, what _can_ you tell us? Start with why Luna Inverse was in your village," Zelgadis commanded.

"Zelas told us that one day, Luna Inverse would arrive. Our duty was to create a holy environment to foster the growth of an angelsblood talisman. A few months ago, she let us know Luna would arrive much sooner than planned. We were also told to be on the look out for devil scouts, because there was a potential war brewing."

"Talismen that invoke the power of the supreme deities can only be forged by those who possess their magical signature. Lei Magnus could do it due to his connection with the Dark Lords through Shabranigdu. I take it you were only forging Siephied's talisman?" Zelgadis asked.

Orun nodded.

"Is Lina busy forging the other three?"

Another nod.

"Great. She's not in this universe anymore," Zelgadis said, pinching the bridge of his nose.

Orun's head snapped up and Lyos's mouth dropped.

"How did you—"

"The only way to get the energy of the other gods when one doesn't have a link is to visit them. That would explain her absence now that things have gone wrong."

"Xelloss has a Ruby Eye talisman, he used it to bring in miss Lina's projection during Ragradia's rebirth," Filia said. " If she's in another universe, how likely is it that a Vision spell or similar suffices if she has angelsblood talismen only?"

"Not likely," Zelgadis said. "Someone like Lina could make it work with an angelsblood, but it's far more likely she's also got new demonsblood talismen."

Filia, Amelia and Zelgadis exchanged a look.

"Lina _is_ the kind of person to go for the full treasure even if it's not part of the plan," Zelgadis said. "Or it could mean both angelsblood and demonsblood talismen are necessary, which implies an even bigger scope in this plot than just the gods. What for is for us to guess and we're told guessing is bad."

"Hmm. I don't think miss Lina would be pushed around by anyone, even someone like Zelas," Amelia said. "Miss Orun and mister Lyos, what's your impression of Zelas? How did she convince you to help?"

"We didn't do it because of Zelas," Lyos said. "You think I'd give a devil one more second of my time after what Deep Sea Dalphin did? Lina convinced me."

"My little sister convinced you to deceive me and use me as incubator for a talisman? I'll be having a talk with her about that when I meet her again," Luna said.

"Miss Orun, please, can you hint us anything about why?" Filia asked, choosing to ignore Luna's dangerous comment.

"I could, but I'm not allowed to tell either Luna or Lyos," she said. "They have human souls, so the gods can connect to their minds without disintegrating, exploiting the resonance of their power. If Valwin or Vrabazard find them, it will be the end of it."

"And the fact that the devils took control of that machine doesn't mean the end?" Amelia asked. "Does this really give you a good reason to keep us out of the loop?"

Filia's tail popped out. "Together, miss Luna and I _can keep out_ the god's influence. We learned how to close the gates for them."

Orun cast a look at Luna. "What does she mean?"

Luna just smirked.

"We've been training in dreams, we can teach mister Lyos as well," Filia said. "If necessary, Earthlord Rangort can test us."

Orun closed her hands, turned her face to the table and whispered, "I'm sorry. I promised."

Filia could feel her tail itch to get out, her eyebrows twitch. This wasn't fair. She shot up, slamming her hands on the table.

"Rangort, do you hear me? Don't just write us off as to weak to be trusted with information. We deserve to have a say in what happens to us!"

"Eh, Filia. Bad idea," Luna said.

Without a second to respond, Zelgadis was thrown at Filia by an invisible force. A rocky elbow connected with her head, then she slammed against the wall.

"What just happened?" Amelia blurted out.

"Rangort likes to throw rocks. Your hubby was the nearest available rock," Luna said.

Zelgadis was back on his feet at once, scowling like he'd pull his sword if there's been anyone to pull it at. Filia was still rubbing her head, but no less seething.

"We are not objects, dammit," Zelgadis growled. "It's bad enough Sailoon's involved into this mess."

"That's the gods for you," Filia sneered. "Don't expect them to be honest or altruistic."

"They're worse than mister Xelloss," Amelia said.

Orun coughed. "I don't want to claim that wasn't an awful way to shut down argument, but do you really think they're that bad?"

This woman might have had a little faith left, so Filia hesitated to say it.

But it had to be said. "I've been to hell and saw there is no heaven, miss Orun. I've spoken to those who died in the name of the gods, believing there was a reward for them. Instead, they got Hellmaster Fibrizo. Did miss Lina tell you about what happened when she defeated the third piece of Shabranigdu?"

"She told me a little," Orun said. "But not much. How could you have been to hell and back?"

"As a being adjusted to channel a deity's power beyond my natural capacity, I have a two-way flow. My body was healthy at the time, so I brought us back. That was all I could do. We are so powerless, the top of our ability was only clawing our way back. The gods didn't care to do anything for those souls, so what could we do?"

"We? As if Luna would have cared," Lyos muttered.

Filia raised a brow.

"You've never actually lived near her, have you?" Lyos leaned back in his chair, looking over his shoulder at Dirgear. "Hey. _Spot_. Tell me again about your doghouse."

The coin dropped. Oh no. Green hair.

"What?" Filia snapped. "He is the Spot you told me about?"

"Yep," Luna said. "Figured you'd throw a tantrum about it, so didn't bother with details."

"A tantrum? Mister Dilgaer, is it true she chained you up?"

"Yes, but—"

"No buts! You have a name that isn't Spot, you shouldn't have to forsake it! You are a sapient being."

Filia glared at Luna, who crossed her arms, smirked and said, "I am very afraid of you, oh help, Siephied."

She needed to invoke years of Xelloss-bred patience to not respond to that. Calmly, she sat down. "Luna, when we get to Sailoon and you dare to treat my family like this, you—"

"Don't care." She flicked an astral cut across Filia.

Her breath took in sharply. There wasn't anything visible, nor did the pain have any location, but Filia felt something had been done to her.

"Miss Filia, what's wrong?" Amelia asked. "Something weird just happened to your energy."

Luna pushed off the wall and opened the door. "Follow, _Spot_."

"Hey, Luna. Does being a chimera of god and human influence you in any way? Cause you're acting more like the gods than the humans," Zelgadis said.

The air might as well be freezing. "Watch your tongue, demon," Luna said calmly. She didn't slam the door as she left, but there was a noise like grinding bones throughout the ship. It didn't go away.

Zelgadis sighed. "Great, more immoral holy people on our roof. Orun, how about you tell me when neither Filia, Lyos or Luna are around? I have no connection to the gods and a pretty good idea how reliable Lina's ideas are. If you don't, I'm about ready to do something risky."

"I guess I could," Orun said. "I'm sorry, miss Filia."

And just like that, Filia was yet again on the sidelines. She promised herself it wouldn't be for long, but what good is a promise when gods and devils are playing?

**· · · · · · ·**


	19. Val's Falter

**· · · · · · ·**

_—let's destroy the world together. We'll build a better one from the pieces. Don't you think that is the ultimate way to get back at Her, Dugradigdu? —_

_—Valgarv, I promise you. One day, you and I will stand at the top of a better world, none of those idiot devils or useless gods and fleeting mortals. We'll all be immortal chimeras—_

_—Valteira, your mother and father won't come home. The goldens were in the western ridge, and ...—_

**· · · · · · ·**

Everyone in the family (but himself) worried their ears off when Filia disappeared one morning. After confirming that fox people do shed hair more often when stressed, Val asked Claire where she'd gone. Apparently, Filia had found herself another distressed supernatural. _Of course_ she'd giddyup on a whim.

Since Filia was clearly occupied with usual business, Val had seen no need to do anything but carry on his daily routine. Everyone else in the family disagreed, so _of course_ the moment she got back, Jillas burst into his private lesson to drag him in a flurry of fur and happiness.

The Siephied temple was packed with curiosities : lots of brown humans and beast folk mulled around the hall, to the point of stuffing it. Amelia's fellow priestesses urged them out through separate doors, dispersing the crowd into silence.

Jillas sniffed out Filia quickly. Slipping through the crowd, he led Val into the core hall of the temple. Most people had already vacated it, leaving Filia a perfect echo chamber for her debate with ... was that Luna?

Val and Jillas stopped at the entrance door, both caught by surprise. Filia, who always held Luna in high regard, looked and sounded anything but regarding. Also, she was picking a fight with the aforementioned Luna, AKA the most frightening human in the world. Sure, she smirked and slouched against Siephied's statue like she had no care in the world, but that was only because she didn't need physical posture when she had an astral body to rage with.

A big green wolfish thing hunched to the side of the furious ladies, he noticed Jillas and Val first.

"Miss Luna, that's the other dragon?" he asked, pointing at them.

Luna's head rolled back, one red eye stared down on him through a curtain of hair. "Yeah. Comes with Frilly's own pet dog too!"

"Don't you call mister Jillas that! He is _family_."

"Uh, uh, Frilly. I've heard what you call Zelas's clown. Garbage's a lot less nice than pet," Luna said.

"That's a insult over a creature so strong I have literary no other way to get some leverage. It's not a control method, it's frustration," Filia said.

"Oh, so you agree that a little assholish behavior's fine with criminals. Consider me keeping Spot in place as community service. Fits his messy past, right, Rock Boy?" Luna said, which the nearby Zelgadis honored with irritated grumbling.

"You didn't even know that when you put that chain on him!" Filia snarled.

"Nah, but it does make a difference for the better, right? He hasn't broken a single law since." Luna patted the green thing on the head.

"That may be true this once. Next time you pick a beast person off the street, they could be an innocent and you wouldn't care, would you?"

"Such hatred for me over a hypothesis. Very noble, Frilly."

Jillas flattened his ears and stayed put, but Val didn't fear Luna. He grew his wings and launched at Filia. Her expression switched from cold resentment to motherly calm. Opening her arms, she caught Val and embraced him. Her eyes stayed on Luna.

"We'll talk about this later," Filia said over Val's shoulder.

"Good, gives me some time to get earplugs." Luna sauntered off with the green thing close behind, like she had no care in the world.

As she moved away, Filia's tension lessened, along with a strange magical tremor. The lady in white, ghostly around them, indicating it was something similar to herself : a godly command. Whether conscious or not, Luna's flow tried influencing Filia's mind. Oddly enough, both of them resisted it, which was why it didn't come true.

Val didn't understand. The lady in white was welcome to him, why didn't Filia fall naturally into it?

She didn't like Luna, so that was why ... should he be liking the lady in white?

Nah, there was nothing to say. All was well.

Knowing all this, he didn't didn't need to ask what got Filia upset, but it was expected.

"What's the matter, mom?" he asked.

"It's ... Val, stay far from Luna, okay?"

"Where you been?" Jillas asked.

Filia leaned down put an arm around him, pulling him into the hug. Jillas squeaked when she squeezed too hard, so she loosened her grip.

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you," she muttered. "I thought we'd be back within an hour, but I had to teleport a whole village here."

"We understand, gunmoll," Jillas said, putting a hand on her back. "At least you did come back!"

"I'll try to keep doing that, promise," she said with a weak smile.

Filia set Val down to push Zelgadis into an unoccupied antechamber. Then she grabbed a woman with spiky white hair and pushed her in there too. She closed the door and stayed outside, while Jillas questioned her on what exactly had happened.

Just then, a familiar blue and white blur had just passed by.

Ignoring everyone, Claire beelined for young man in a weird white jacket, who has spiky hair to rival that woman from a moment ago. He sat against the wall, eyes closed as if asleep, but too posed to be. When Claire stopped before him, he looked up and smiled.

"You're ... " Lyos's voice trailed off, his eyes widening in wonder.

"Well, now that you're here, we might as well get along," Claire said with a shrug.

"You better have an explanation on why you didn't want us to come. We were ... holy crap." His face drew from mild irritation to awe, to a weird twist, and then uneasiness, and finally a grin.

"Okay, why not. I can deal with this," Lyos muttered as he pulled a hand over his face. "Anything else that I need to know about telepathy? Oh ... right."

He stood up and followed her closely. It wasn't quite mimicry, more like every motion they made accounted for the other. She opened the door, he closed it, like they'd never been anything but this symbiosis.

Five seconds later, Claire burst back into. "Orun! Don't!"

Filia's tail popped out and she blocked Claire from opening her door.

The two would-be dragons had a staredown of something, which ended with Claire's defeated sigh. "Fine."

By the time the door opened again, the hall had drained of everyone, while Amelia had returned.

Zelgadis stepped out first. With his usual look, it was hard to tell whether he was more severe than usual.

"And?" Filia asked.

"It's crazy," Zelgadis said. "I don't know what possessed Lina to agree with this. Then again, I've asked that many times before."

" _And_?" Filia asked, digging her fingers in and out of her cloak.

"We'll go along with it. I'd like to say it's because I trust Lina to know what she's doing, but to be honest, I don't. I do understand that if we refuse, we will be in deep trouble. Right now, Rangort covered for us by preventing the other gods and dragons from finding out about us. If he stops, they will find us."

"So the god're putting a gun to our heads, eh?" Jillas said.

Zelgadis nodded. "Pretty much. Our best chance is to wait, send an army where ever Rangort wants and hope Sailoon remains unnoticed. Claire, Ragradia, whatever you are, you're playing a fatal game. I will write what I know on a scroll for Filia to find in case of emergency."

"Is there any way I and Luna can lock the gods out with any certainty, or at least improve our fortitude?" Filia asked Orun.

"I'm sorry, but I know too little about this kind of magic," Orun said, shaking her head sadly.

"Rangort knows. He should have prepared everyone involved starting _years_ ago," Zelgadis said. "If Vrabazard or Valwin had come across Lyos and Luna, it would have been over. They shielded themselves with that cloud without grasping what they did and that is the only reason those two aren't on our roof yet."

"Speaking of looking for people," Amelia said, "Miss Claire, I left you a note, didn't you find it?"

Claire shrugged. "I did, but Sylphiel is alright. There was no need to arrange for her teleportation back, she is in safe claws."

"Claws?" Orun asked. "Who is Sylphiel?"

"An acquaintance," Claire said. "Xelloss arranged for us to have an insider in the enemy's movement. She is with Milgazia right now."

"What? How?" Filia snapped. "You let him mess with miss Sylphiel?"

Another shrug from Claire. "I don't know whether he planned it at all or whether he winged something, but it may be useful. Let it be."

Off course Claire would say something that careless. She was a god.

**· · · · · · ·**

_— nowadays, I can say she was beautiful. Ragradia. I'd still kill her, off course. She feeds on peaceful feelings and I just happen to like battle, whether it's for the miasma or not, but I'd do it with more style. Maybe I'd tie her to a human soul, once I figured out how to sever power like th—_

**· · · · · · ·**

It was just fine that Claire spent all of the next day teaching Lyos this and that, because that one memory of his dream tickled Val's long forgotten murder instincts.

Killing Ragradia ... Garv ...

Val didn't feel like killing Claire, in fact, something told him he needed her alive. Yet it somehow appealed to him, because it was something Garv wanted.

Or rather, it was about altering the nature of astral beings ...

A whipping hit on his desk startled him. Under the glare of his teacher, Val tried forcing his mind back to his work, but to no avail. Transcribing old texts, math, one way or another it kept bringing him back to the topic of transmigrating divine power into another form ...

"Sir, was wondering about gods. Since holy magic became available to this land again, why aren't the gods doing more to help us?"

"Are they really gods?" his teacher asked.

Val tilted his head. This was already not going the he expected, so he just shrugged.

"We understand gods to be protective entities opposite of the harmful devils, but where the devils corrupt, the gods have yet to bother to reveal a unified doctrine. It's been eight years now and none have come forth. Are they busy elsewhere? Who knows? Explanations are as diverse as they were while the barrier still stood."

"Gods feed on faith," Val said.

"I've heard that theory, yes. If that is true, that makes them more of a top predator than a spiritual leader, doesn't it?"

He nodded quickly. "And if they die, that's not our concern, is it?"

"Perhaps. Magic certainly has processed in their absence, it may well be one day they are a moot point in the game of us versus devils. But for the world as a whole, currently it is better that they exist than that they don't."

"Wouldn't it be better if _neither_ the gods nor devils were the way they are now? There wouldn't be any more war, would there?"

"That is wistful thinking. While it is true that devils can worsen corruption, or plant the seed for it, there is more to a conflict than the beginning and the result of it," his teacher said. She opened a book and shoved it before him. It depicted the recently constructed tanks and bombs, and the way they used shamanistic principles for fuel. "With devils and gods gone, humanity would go on regardless to breed war. There are other sources of energy, starting with the spirits of nature."

"Yeah," Val said. "Mom keeps saying that too. Sometimes devils are even helpful, even if they don't do it for the right reasons, and humans do awful things all on their own. Mom says that we should help each other anyway cause that's the only reason we are alive. We make the world better step by step."

"If that didn't come from gods, you don't need to bother with them either, do you?"

"Yeah ... so, about this triangle thing, how does that work again?"

That was all he said, but the unfinished thought went further. Sometimes, it didn't matter how hard one tried, because the gods and devils could destroy it at a whim. And sometimes, the gods and devils destroyed themselves. The entire system needed a revamp. If they could be remade to serve instead, it would solve a lot.

Just like he himself had to be remade, but he wasn't sure into what. There should have been directions by now, yet the lady in white feathers was too silent.

**· · · · · · ·**

That evening, Val arrived at the smith shop to meet up with Filia. She'd skipped work, instead helping to remove something from Luna's necklace.

He wasn't allowed further in than the display room, but the scent of scorching flesh was unmistakable. He slipped through a storage room, following it.

By now, the memories of past lives didn't faze him anymore : people had burned in wars, on pyres in times of peace. The last time he had smelled it was in Jillas's old village. He had been Valgarv, who had not cared. Val didn't have to either.

They were in the east wing.

Luna didn't scream like everyone else, but an unearthly tremor rippled through the flow. Too proud to show pain, or perhaps she used tricks to get around it. The flow shifted often, probably a healing spell. The closed door muffled the voices, but Gravos's thundering, "I gave up, I couldn't get that thing out with the forges of hell!" stood out clear enough.

When the door swung open, Val ducked behind a heavy armor. Gravos careened out. Palu followed right after, a dejected look on his face. Once, Val would have gone after him to make him feel better, but that didn't really matter anymore. Besides, Orun followed them. As they disappeared into the next room, he heard her start one of those typical encouragement thingies.

More interesting was what he could hear and see in the reflections of the shields opposite of the door. The room was dark, lit only by fire, but it was enough.

"For the last time, stop talking like that to my family!" Filia snapped.

"Why?"

With Luna, she had never been on her guard, had she? Val knew the feeling, it was much like the gods turning their back on his people. The goldens suddenly on their doorstep with a war declaration. Evil hurt the worst when it comes from the ones you trust.

They rambled on long after the others had left the room, verbally circling around each other. Both of them desperate to make the other get it. This was also so, so familiar. He'd talked like that with many a priest in the past; they'd died at the end of the conversation though. At his hands.

"This isn't okay. He's a person just like you, you can't treat him like he's lesser. If he did commit crimes, hand him to judges or roll him into Sailoon's reformation program." Filia was shrill from a dry throat by now. "Mister Dirgear, don't you have anything to say?"

"Not about forgiveness, Frilly. I just like pets and there's lawful benefits to keeping this one." Luna's voice never changed from the casual chit-chat tone.

"This is abuse. Even if we were talking about pets, you shouldn't torment them!"

Luna swung one leg over the other and smirked, like she'd just reached a point she'd angled for.

"You're one to talk about lousy relationships. What was it again? _Oh Valgarv, what can I do to redeem myself before you_?" Luna said. " _Because I feel sooooooo bad for that crime that happened when I wasn't born yet and oh woe you're so sad and tragic that totally deserves all my heart_. Get off my back, Frilly. You're the most codependent person in the damn castle and _happy that way_."

A suffocating silence fell over the room, none the least for Val. It was okay remembering Valgarv when he killed strangers, less so when he hurt her.

"I'll admit that was ... it made me do stupid things. That doesn't mean I can't tell when I see it happen to others," Filia finally said.

"Is it? Spot, you mind being with me?"

"No."

"Frilly, did you mind Valgarv's abuse?"

"I didn't like what he did, but—"

"There's the but! You thought he had _a right_. I've never put a sword in Spot's hand, pointed it at his stomach and pushed, telling him it's his fault I was killing him. But Valgarv, oh, he wasn't going to kill you with a mere sword. He threw good old Ultimate Evil at you. And yet you wanted _his_ forgiveness where he should fall to his knees and beg it from you. If you can go easy on Valgarv because of his sob story, maybe I should give you a sob story of my own. I'll bawl a bit and then we can go back to more fun chit chat."

"You don't understand. How could you? Do you even believe in rights?"

"Give me some empirical evidence and I'll consider it," Luna said, swinning a leg over the other as she fell down in a chair. She leaned her elbow on the edges and held open her hands. "Come on. Where's the evidence?"

Filia prepared to walk out, but Luna grabbed her long hair and janked her back, so she stood aside of the chair and had to lean down.

"You were attracted to the idea of him, the powerful pretty bad boy. Just like my little Spot thinks I'm charming," Luna whispered. "I've seen it in your nightmares. But you didn't, cause you're ignoring it. Spot at least knows why he's really here."

"So what if I was? I didn't choose that, I bet Dirgear didn't either. My choice was to kill him. It's also my choice not to be bound with monsters. Not my Elder, not Xelloss and not Valgarv. If you stand by your behavior, there is nothing left for us to talk about." She pulled her hair loose and marched out of the door.

Val fled without anyone seeing him, his heart racing as all the pieces fell together.

The power of gods and in their shadow the name Valgarv. Something tried pushing the association away, but he didn't allow that anymore.

That night, he dreamed again.

**· · · · · · ·**

_— you can love existence now, can't you?" Valteira asked as they walked down a mountain path, the burning question finally out. They had spent the last five days dodging devils and dragons alike. Now they'd finally arrived at Garv's lair._

_"Yeah. Minor perk, no negative points. I'm pleasantly surprised, to be honest. The gods never felt like they enjoyed existing, they just did it cause they had to. But this? Hell yes, I love plenty now. But it's not that different from before, you know." Garv stretched his arms, though he possessed no muscles. Or did he?_

_"Don't you feel bad about the past? You did a lot of awful things."_

_"Are you asking me whether I got a conscience? Don't be ridiculous," Garv said. "I just want to live, that is all that changed. Well, that does make me a new person, but we always had the ability to like concepts, if not things. Devils are desperate to deny this because it clashes so loudly with the need to destroy everything. Yet we have names, we have identities. That's a preference right there that devils cannot go without. I've always liked war, I liked the aesthetic of manliness ... Dalphin, she likes the sea and femininity, and Zelas, she likes living things and even social structures. The bitch has an actual pack."_

_Valteira didn't know what to make of that. Then again, he didn't know what to make of this world at all. When the gods condoned genocide, really, why would it surprise him to learn the devils weren't what they should be either?_

_Garv droned on as he kicked open a heavy wooden door. "It's a handicap, you know. Imagine how powerful a devil army would be if they could alter their form in battle as easily as they claim. They brag about how they aren't bound to form, but they can't exploit the choice to change. And guess what? Some of them figured out the world doesn't add up."_

_The place they entered was thick with magic, somehow he could see it now. "What is this? Why does it look so weird?"_

_"Ah, another perk of being a chimera," Garv said as he knocked on the walls. "We can have homes without denying something about ourselves. One of the best things about that is I can craft non-sentient astral constructions. Walls, if you wanna be simple about it. It's why neither gods nor devils can track me when I'm injured and leaking. But more importantly, it's a good place to hide my army."_

_He clacked his tongue, and a light went on. Fire on the physical plane, and a bright cloud on the astral. Now Valteira saw them : devils surrounded them._

_A green haired guy with blue skin, a woman with red hair, an elderly fisherman, a gruff general and a perky orange haired boy stepped ahead and bowed to Garv._

_"Hey, guys. I got him. Valgarv, meet Kanzel, Mazenda, Rashat, Raltaak and Enlys. Except for Rashat and Raltaak, they're all devils who want to live. Together, we're going to change this world."_

_**· · · · · · ·** _

He had to keep going down the path Garv had set him on. It was the one thing Val ul Copt, Valteira and Valgarv agreed on.

First, he had to fill the hollow so the lady in white became stronger. Not entirely, the wrong people would notice if he suddenly had a full astral body. Just enough so she had power, while he still had his shield.

The lady herself was supposed to do that, but she was ill, so he had to do it for her. There was nothing to say to anyone else. They didn't get that the gods were tools to be used. It was important that he himself, as the one who did understand, would have some real leverage.

The potential sources of holy magic were aplenty : Lyos, Luna, Claire and Filia.

None of their types were entirely similar. Filia's holiness as a channel was the least personal, and not affected by the pillar as they were similar functions : suction devices. He had no need for that type of power.

Claire's type of power contained knowledge and complex mental facets. Val had an inkling he needed that, but he couldn't recall what for.

Luna and Lyos had subtly different types of power. Ragradia's proverbial skeletal had gone into sealing Lei Magnus, so Lyos had power he could only indirectly manifest. Luna's power was purer, because it was the actual remnant of Siephied.

Attacking her was risky though, and there was one other potential source. Filia had severed a tiny piece of Valwin once, that was how she'd astrally traveled.

**· · · · · · ·**

The next morning as she was setting the breakfast table, he asked, "Mom, isn't it dangerous to walk around with a little piece of a god in you if that light turns on again?"

She tensed up, as expected. "I don't know. The piece hasn't merged with me, I doubt it's dangerous."

"I heard Claire and Lyos talk about how Lyos wanted to go to the gods because of it. I'm afraid of that, mom. If you aren't you anymore, you'll leave us!"

"Oh, Val." She leaned over the table and gently ran her hand over his head. "Don't worry, there's a fusion shield all over Sailoon. Even if it happens again, I remember exactly what Xelloss did to lock it out. I will teach others to use fusion vessels that way. I promise, I'll be okay."

"If you say so. But wouldn't it be safer if you gave it to me? I bet cause of my hollow shadow thing, it'll be just as invisible as everything about me! And I can use that power to keep us all safe if dragons come, then I won't have to transform anymore!" As he spoke, he stood on his chair.

Filia chuckled, but it wasn't as friendly as she meant to convey. Val saw.

"I'll think about it."

**· · · · · · ·**

The next day, Filia decided to give the wind god's fragment to Orun. So, she didn't trust him when she should. As his mother and a good person, it was her role to help him, her child.

Instead, that weird woman got it because she already had godly attention anyway and a greater spiritual power. Supposedly, this allowed her to keep the power from merging with her soul and she was more likely to stay in Sailoon than Filia. Zelgadis had made it clear Filia was to go to the location later to help Lina.

It was all fine and well that things went as they should, but that bit of godly power was so convenient and it had slipped through his fingers. He wasn't even allowed into the temple to look as they transferred it.

As he waited outside, Luna and her pet dropped by.

"Hey, kid. They started already?"

Val nodded. "Door's closed."

"Not for me," she said.

In true Inverse style, she just burned the lock _and_ the locking spell. Having little else to do, Val trailed after her.

"Hey, stay back, your hollow's obnoxious," Luna said. Her green pet winced, then gave Val a surprised look.

Was something supposed to happen? Val stayed back just in case.

Luna frowned at Val, but shrugged it off and made her way into the inner sanctum. The place shone in silvery light, and once Luna stepped in, the resonance of godliness.

"I can't believe you're wasting this power, Frilly," Luna called.

A telltale groan echoed out, more dragon than human. Filia appeared seconds later. "Are you just here to complain?"

"Yes. You're wasting my work," Luna said.

"No, I am not. None of the things we learned are leaving my head. All I'm losing is a tiny bit of power I could do without before, and miss Orun could use it to protect her people," Filia snapped.

"Shooting yourself in the foot again. What about astral projecting?"

"I didn't forget about that either!"

They went on for this a little bit, both of them distracted enough that Val could steal a peak inside the holy hall. Orun sat crosslegged in the center, below a cloud of light. Claire and Lyos were there too, containing the holiness. Fusion magic shielded the whole thing. Ah, they used a life law circle. So, those existed in this world too?

Hmm ... this looked simple enough. Similar flow technique as in the Black World, safe for a few key differences.

Someone grabbed him before he could see more. "Val, we told you to stay outside! You might affect the magic per accident!" Filia said.

"Sorry mom," he said, dipping his head a little while looking up. Puppy dog eyes always worked for her.

"Just go outside, okay? Don't listen to Luna."

"Hey!" Luna called from down the hall. "I had nothing to do with him coming in!"

"You set a bad example!" Filia hollered back.

Luna and Filia's interaction stayed that way : short bursts of tension before they went their own way and pretended nothing was wrong.

It was convenient, though. Val wouldn't feel bad about stealing from Luna, this way. He just needed to know how. Time to dream.

**· · · · · · ·**

_— "How does it feel to kill a god?" Valgarv asked._

_"I'll show you. Mind, this may be blurry, but it should transfer enough of the feeling," Garv said. He gave him another tiny fragment of himself, which carried the memory._

_Garv didn't so much actively kill Ragradia as he was in the middle of her suicidal attack. They killed each other, but not in the way Garv wanted. Knowing he'd die and be degraded without achieved anything was a bitter way to end. He loved war, but this was the worst kind of victory he could achieve. Even defeat would have been better than this humiliation._

_Valgarv snapped out of the memory._

_"Not what you expected, eh?"_

_"No ... I thought it would feel great."_

_"If it had been up to me, I'd have its head partially aware in my castle. Ironically, I wouldn't bother with such trivialities anymore. We seek the same thing now and Ragradia was an excellent opponent."_

_"Keeping the head alive? How is that possible?"  
_

_"It's a metaphor," Garv said. "Astral beings are mind, sure, but there still is anatomy to this form. The power they use to fight isn't the same as the power that hosts their identity or binds them as persons. Let me show you ..."_

_**· · · · · · ·** _

Val woke up with bloodthirst in his veins and blood across his face.

The sun shone into the room through bright curtains, Elena sang in the kitchen and he smelled eggs with bacon. If he came down now with murder on his mind, they'd be suspicious. Even non-astral beings could detect an emotion this strong. Val fought to switch back on a more appropriate mindset. He was to be a child, innocent and happy.

Clutching a hand across his head, he forced the irrelevant pain to the front in hope of getting back the inconspicuous childlike persona. The pain had to matter because the child would feel it, but he couldn't will it.

It didn't work. He climbed out of bed and peered into the mirror; he had grown into his adult human self. His hair was drenched with blood, just above his hairline the skin had cracked like his dragon horn his tried to grow out. Bit of black protruded form the skin.

"Damnit ... " The Valgarv from the memories had a horn, right? He'd identified too much, his body had tried to comply, but the devil powers that Valgarv had possessed weren't his.

He dropped back on the bed, buried his face in his hands and pretended breathing was the sole point of life. Filia used that trick at times after dealing with particularly troublesome customers.

A heavy knock on the door made him flinch.

"Val, are you coming? Breakfast is almost ready! We have pancakes!" Molly called.

Val hedged his "Comin'" with groans and draconic squeaks, a poor disguise for his heavier voice. Molly didn't wonder, fortunately.

"Okay, see you down!"

It took him another ten minutes to stop thinking about killing gods, until he found the trick : he couldn't kill them messily. Putting all his thoughts to getting holy power to fill the hollow, that stilled the need to destroy them a little.

He turned back into a child, switched on the fitting happy mindset and went down.

**· · · · · · ·**

Luna got herself employment down in the city as a waitress. Nobody protected her and she knew no complex magic. Didn't even hang out with any magicians.

Val sought her out one late evening, when she was just heading home. Off course she exited through the dark ally with only a single lantern; she had her pride as the invincible woman with the veil of fragility.

Just as she closed the door, he stepped into the ally. "Hey, Luna."

She turned slowly and placed a hand on her hips. "What'dya want?"

"I want to talk about gods. Is it true that none of them care for people outside of food?"

"Late night crisis of existence? You're taking after your mom. Yeah, it's true. That what you wanted to hear?"

"No."

"Too bad. No transcendental wisdom to pursue in this world or the others," Luna said, more sharply now. "Gods flow, that's it. Now scram."

"It's not good enough," he said. "Luna, you're the Knight of Siephied, right? Ever wondered what you'd be like if you were just human instead?"

She faltered. One might have missed it if one didn't know what she was like most of the time; just the hesitation of her answer, the slight tilt of her head.

"I guess my life would be minus the hassle that brought me here. Why?"

"I'm making that happen."

He grabbed her throat and pushed her against the wall. Luna's weak human form wasn't a match for his draconic strength, her holy power trashed blindly in his void.

His own astral form grabbed her power. With thought alone, he recreated the tunnel to steal her power. Bit by bit he tore it off, swallowing it into his own soul. Luna's fury was easily ignored ...

No.

Fifty red eyes projected in the ally, spinning wildly till they saw him. Red nerves connected with Luna's main body.

Now she saw him.

Oh hell no.

Luna was astrally blind, but nothing stopped her from projecting. Four pointed tentacles manifested around him, two duginto his back. Luna smirked.

_— tip of Xelloss's staff went through his arm, right through his primary muscle, and it twisted it and twisted and —_

Val dropped her and tore loose. The other two tentacles cut at his legs, so he grew his wings and flew up. As he crawled onto the roof, energy burned on his tail. If not for the distorting hollow around him, he would have lost a wing. Now, the shockwave just threw him off balance. He collided hard with the ground, cracking a wing under himself.

"What the hell are you doing?" Luna said, her eerily calm.

What indeed?

The stolen godliness flowed into waiting caverns, and connected a space greater than his mind could encompass before.

_— that's how devils are, sadistic by need," Garv said. "Not that there's anything wrong with that, but it's pretty self destructive in the end. Even if Shabranigdu won't vaporize every atom in the world, if they win all life ends sooner or later until they themselves starve. Won't that be funny? Then there would be nothing left to destroy the world —_

_— he hated waiting, couldn't stand this. He could pass the barrier if Garv could do it, exploit the same miscalculation that didn't recognize devil chimeras, but then he'd betray Garv's trust. He wasn't bound to perfect obedience like Rashat and Raltaak were, he chose to ... and it was difficult for the first time to obey. Ever since that infernal girl had cast a spell with the power of the Lord of Nightmares, everything was going wrong —_

_— he was gone. Annihilated. Garv Flare didn't work anymore. He forced the words out of Rashat, that it was by the machinations of Fibrizo ... Fibrizo was gone too, but there had been others involved. Xellos and Lina Inverse ... he'd make them —_

_— I have an offer to you, said the strange thing without astral shape. Help me with this, and —_

_— so the gods from other worlds were just as callous as those from this world —_

_— he shouldn't have summoned his dragon blood, it conflicted with the devil energy, but there was no other way to get an advantage on Xelloss, he was just playing around—_

_—Almayce couldn't be trusted, off course. He was a god.—_

_—He'd fix it, just like Garv wanted. A world without gods and devils.—_

_—almost funny how none of those would have happened if Xelloss had acted like the devil he should be and let those rocks crush her, but Dugradigdu and Volphied had no sense of humor to spare. They didn't have much in the way of mental details, not even an appreciation for irony. That was okay. Simpler. —_

_—there is Lina again, getting in the way. She will never understand, but now he knows all that Dugradigdu and Volphied know, his past hatred for her seems small and petty in light of the true culprit, the Lord of Nightmares—_

_—there she is again, that little lady who doesn't know any better—_

Val opened his eyes to an unknown chandelier on a yellow ceiling. Sailoon's palace? The temple? Where was he?

_—she looked up at the star filled sky above the massacre and realized they were untouched and uncaring. She could travel between the stars, but even she could not command them. That meant Dark Star could not either. Did they realize this? Once they had, but now—_

_—he saw her look up, wondered whether she liked what she saw, and then she asked him that one question that changed everything—_

_—no, it wasn't a change, he'd already known, but forgotten—_

_—once, I fought to preserve existence. Now, I just fight for the sake of fighting, despite my hatred for it... I hate all this yet on some level I like our war—_

_—it's not fair that you can hate this much, but I cannot love, because you always had more satisfaction and fulfillment —_

_—maybe that's the problem, you can still enjoy certain things, but not everything. It is unfair, Dugradigdu, she said—_

_—look at them, they don't care for our grand purpose. Mine want to fight, yours want to fight, it's no longer about void or existence—_

_—we're the same—_

His mother was at his side. On instinct, he pushed up from the bed and reached for her, holding her hand — Her breath took in sharply and she pushed him away. Fear filled her miasma.

_—she struggles, but she's too weak to do anything. Hah, as if her death would be enough to atone! Wouldn't it be perfect if a golden dragon sets loose this power? Still struggling, so much fear and despair, she's begging now, but her hand is on the key to end it all and I have her unleash the seal — stop! — and the power above unfolds — the aura of Dark Star engulfs us, I sense it, she senses it and realizes what I and she have done, and she goes catatonic and doesn't matter anymore —_

How could his mother not matter? Who ever that had been — him — was a complete idiot.

The memories were pushed away, by him, by the lady of feathers. He was to act like the loving child because ... because ... they had to believe he was harmless.

This wasn't right, he shouldn't keep secrets from his mother.

But there was nothing to tell anyone.

He knew the emotion of guilt should, would have been there, but it was cut away. Right now, Luna watched, Claire watched, and his emotional landscape had to be innocent.

Val stood up, wanting to comfort his mother, but someone grabbed him.

"Ooh, you gotta tell me how you get someone this afraid," Luna said, throwing him back down on the couch. She turned to Filia. "It's quite something."

His mother looked away. "Not now, miss Luna."

"I'll hold you to that later then, Frilly," Luna said.

"Mom?" Val asked.

"Yes?"

"Sorry," he said. He couldn't even tell why he was sorry. About hurting Luna? That his mother feared him? Or just for himself, because she pushed him away.

He's known once, when he was only Val ul Copt.

When Val ul Copt could still believe he wasn't a diversion program.

But Val ul Copt hadn't been anyone who could taste emotions, nor would he have hurt any friend of his mother.

He couldn't tell anyone, just like he couldn't will his heart to stop beating. The need to be silent lay deeper than anything this version of himself wanted. He was just a surface concept. That same deeper command would make all his heart go silent too, until it wouldn't matter anymore. There was another heart, another instinct, that wanted other things.

It required that Filia trust him.

He had to, _somehow_. So he had to lie. He could combine that with hoping his mother would be alright.

"I'm really sorry I scared you, mom," he said, holding out a hand. "I'm not going to hurt you. I only attacked her because she hurt me first. I just wanted to ask her about what the other gods are like cause I understand Claire, and she did something that hurt."

Perfection. Filia's doubtful look went from him to Luna.

"Don't be ridiculous. If that's true, why—" Luna started.

"You astrally attack people over little things," Filia said, fading disbelief in her emotions. Acceptance replaced it. "Miss Lina's not afraid out of exaggerated memories, is she? You've done it to me too, and others."

Luna shrugged. "So I like to poke people. I didn't do it with him. But let's say I did : tearing away part of my power is overkill."

"But we can't really verify whether he did that, can we?" Filia said. "You know Val has trouble controlling himself when Valteira shines through. You shouldn't have provoked him!"

"I didn't, Filia. He is lying!" Luna said. For the first time, she raised her voice.

"Val has never lied to me before. He kept Claire from me for a while, but he never lied." She left the rest unspoken, but even that silence riled Luna up.

"I'm not the one with a record of violence," Luna said, taking a step forward.

His mother stood tall, and though she got angry, she didn't lash out. Two contained storms that refused to rise. "We will talk later. I'm bring Val home now."

**· · · · · · ·**

She teleported him home, and left after putting him into bed. It never occurred to her that his clothing hadn't been torn, like they would have been.

Not interested in sleep, he stood up the moment she was out of the door.

It had been a long time since he had been a chimera, he'd missed the ability to project his clothes, if anything. Bringing that power to the front, he projected the first to come to his mind : Night Dragon Volphied.

Her full form and fragmented had been buried in a separate compartment within the hollow, now finally connected to his main mind. Given godly power — her sibling's power — he could project her in the same way astral beings projected themselves. It was the perfect adaption for one with such a different composition. Val pulled the curtains closed just as her form began to glow.

A human woman on the physical plane, she wore white, but she also was black as the night, great as the firmament. Like him. Claire had unlocked memories for him when she was still a bible, but not _these_. Either she had not known, or chosen to pass them over. He poured more of the holy power into these memories until all the stars had become a single light, and his heart of night lived again.

"Hello, my prophet. I am Night Dragon Volphied."

And then nothing.

He frowned.

"Hey, talk," he said, tugging at her cloak. "What am I supposed to do now?"

She smiled kindly, but said nothing. There wasn't any emotion ... why? Maybe he hadn't given her enough energy. There was still a huge hollow around himself, maybe she wasn't entirely alive yet.

"Come on, tell me what to next! Aren't we supposed to fix the world?"

"Yes," the thing that wasn't quite Volphied said.

"Where are you?"

It couldn't answer, because he himself didn't know.

Someone else did speak up. "Val, what is that?"

He hadn't even notice Claire enter, even as she gave off strong emotions and light fell through the door's rift. Anxiety, doubt and confusion mingled in.

Quickly, he switched back on Val ul Copt, but only partially. He remained in adult form to match her grown up self.

"I ... I made it," Val said. "I remembered her, she helped me once."

Claire clenched her fists. She grew a wing and used it to touch the very tip of the projection's long cloak, only to pull back as if burned.

"You took Luna's power for this, didn't you?"

"Yeah, what of it? Why are you even here?" he muttered.

"I may not see you astrally, but I am well aware of Luna and Filia."

Claire closed the door behind her, returning the darkness save for the glow of the failed Volphied. Val dissolved the projection entirely, he didn't need it. Claire was here now, he had to focus on her.

"Don't tell Filia," he said. "If she knows, so does Luna. She'll kill me."

"No, she'd only do that if—aaah!" He slammed a claw into the wall near her head.

"Did Filia ever tell Luna how to build a beacon so she could teleport me to her to be killed?"

Claire's eyes were wide in fear, but not for long. She slipped away under his arm. When she turned back to him, her face was even again.

"She did. Why would she not? She wasn't wrong to think you'd snap. But she did not want you dead, she thought Luna would subdue you."

Something about the monotone, couldn't care less way of delivery irked him beyond belief. She still wasn't acting like a real living person.

"Val, why are you trying to find a reason to not trust your mother?"

Scrambled memories offered up a plethora of reasons : she is golden dragon echoed through all of them. The nemesis of the ancient dragons. This mingled with his new life, which said the opposite.

Lost in this, he could only shrug and try another tactic. "I don't know," he muttered, letting the feelings from the new life boil up. "I guess I'm just scared. I don't really know who I am anymore. And then you're here, being entirely sure of who you are even when you're in pieces. I don't get it."

 _That_ got the desired effect. Claire deflated and stepped closer, hesitant. Her emotions tasted of the same malfunctional imitation of sympathy, the best she could muster. Still, it was real enough to influence her.

When she embraced him, it was awkward and mechanic. It didn't even fit. She should have talked to him, but her naivety was fine with Val. He'd get her silence more easily like this.

"I didn't mean to hurt you, Claire," he said. "I just lost control for a little bit. I only really hurt people if they try to kill me, but I didn't go on a rampage with Luna, did I?"

"You passed out," she said dryly.

"That's because I got hit. Ask mom for my injuries, I was already fleeing from Luna when she shot me. I'm really trying not to lose control, but if mom hears I took a piece of Luna's power, she'll be scared."

Claire pulled away. "Why did you do that?"

"Cause there's one thing I agree on with Luna : it's not a good idea to let power go. I will protect mom better, and with Luna, I don't feel bad about taking it."

"Is that really all the reason?" she asked as she pulled back and looked in his eyes.

"Yes, that's why I tried projecting that woman. Wouldn't two bodies be handy? I can fight from a distance!" he said eagerly. "Besides, someone has to do something to protect us. The gods aren't doing it, and you won't do much either."

"I'm -"

He held up his hands, laughing lightly but letting a little anger leak into his aura. "I know. You need to stay hidden, you and your Knight. And we both know Luna will leave the moment the talisman is out. That's why _I_ had to something."

"I see," she mumbled. "I won't tell her. I don't know whether I can keep it from Lyos, though."

"Good," Val said. "Maybe we should tell him. I'd like to learn how to fight better."

She nodded, smiling and weary, but as compliant as he wanted.

**· · · · · · ·**

Filia and Luna didn't resolve anything, unless you could call not talking to each other a resolution.

Lyos learned, and didn't like the silence Claire vowed him to keep, but agreed to spar with Val.

Even as Volphied was incomplete, there finally was movement in the plan.

When a few days later, the pillar turned on again, it didn't even bother him. Positively he could make it all work out once he was back in shape, he just leaned out of the window and watched. This one didn't summon gods, but devils. One ray went to the Kataart Mountains, one ray to an location in the south; this one broke off quickly.

It bore a strong sense of approaching his greatest wish.

**· · · · · · ·**


	20. Zelas's Coverup

**· · · · · · ·**

History's latest trend : make overs. Zelas had become an involuntary trend setter.

Luna took the first step, tinkering with the angelsblood talisman somewhere in the east. Not the west. Zelas would bet her tail that Lyos had now met Claire, starting their eventual ... ahem, make over ... too early.

Then Deep Sea Dalphin with the island ...

Now, Zelas wasn't one to criticize petty indulgences. Redecorating held a beloved spot on her list of Secret Blasphemy Against Daddy. But by the questionable living of her soul ... the things ... the things Dalphin did —

Little bobble head clam people in the newly carved windows and cotton candy pink coral framing asymmetric doorways, halls filled with anemone fields, chandeliers of dancing lobsters hung from the floor up — a festival of pointlessness.

— the things Dalphin had done to her Tel al-Metaliom, her key to fulfilling her purpose for the Lord of Nightmares. This was unholy!

Unholy in a bad way. Maybe as a devil she'd have to call it holy, but Zelas was sure the gods would find this abomination just as loathsome. The enchantments on the place even clouded the navigation on the astral plane.

The barest benefit was that she now had an excuse for her foul mood, which would be ill fit to her fellow deities and their glee.

With a swift kick, the latest spiralpool door scattered into a ray of water, the fifteenth she had destroyed. This one finally brought her and Xelloss into the central hall.

Deep Sea Dalphin turned her head and smiled. "I waited for you quite a while. Dynast is already here."

"You could have done a better job with the layout, lord Dalphin!" Post note unsaid : because I designed this place yet I cannot even tell where in hell I am. "I should not have to project a physical body to navigate such a short distance!"

She shifted to her aristocrat form just so she'd have a high heel to grind into that obnoxiously cute bubble-spawning clam the stood in the middle of the hall for no reason at all!

Deep Sea Dalphin simply tilted her head. "Oh my, did I offend you?"

"No," Zelas said through bared fangs. "Whatever makes you think that?"

Zelas set the doorframe on fire, yet all it prompted from Deep Sea Dalphin was a whimsical little laughter as she spun away. With a few dainty steps, Dalphin joined Dynast and Grau at the edge of the glowing pentagon.

It wasn't as mint colored as it ought to be, a sickly orange color mingled with it thanks to an orchestra of shrimp at each corner. Rashat and Raltaak were amongst them as directors.

No, why?

A small clutter of humans ran by the beast devils, franticly pushing a cart till they noticed the fuming Zelas. They froze, bowed and muttered apologies before dispersing.

They were a few of a legion of humans flocking in the cavities around the pentagon. In the already chaotic architecture, they blended with their chaos of magic tools, food stands and lampoons with happy faces painted on.

"With all due respect, lord Dalphin, what is this abomination?" Zelas asked.

"Oh, I made a few accommodations for my loyal followers," Dalphin drawled. "They appreciate them."

Judging from the miasma, they appreciated it the way stressed people under the delusion of happiness did. Where the tackiness bothered Zelas, for them it had to be a lot more.

"Won't you come, dear Zelas and Xelloss?" Dalphin asked. "I was just about to show lord Dynast how this operation works. Perhaps you can aid me to enlighten him?"

It could be an indication she knew Zelas was in, or it could be a simple dig at Dynast's intelligence. Neither her light smile nor her emotions gave Zelas a clue.

As Dalphin walked down a stair, the rustle of her dress became more distinct, the shine on the pearls brighter. Her human cult skittered closer, for as far as they were not duty bound to a station. They barely paid heed to the other devils, only moving out of the way and bowing. On her, they heaped sick love and praise.

A scrawny, overworked little woman stepped forth, gesturing the others to give her room. She bowed deeply.

"Lord Dynast, lord Zelas, meet my beloved bishop and organizer, Seija Kaaros." At the word beloved, the pawn's pride kindled even as she trembled in fear.

"Proceed to explain my colleagues, will you, dear?" Dalphin said.

Eagerly and with a juicy dose of anxiety, she obeyed. To Zelas her words were old news, but she generated the required fascination by thinking hard about how she'd done it.

In lower layers of the island lay an energy principle similar to the Dark Star weapons. Lina Inverse had weaseled the technique from Pokota and put them together. The Dark Star weapons released power based on will, but how much was proportionally put out depended on the spirit hive within the weapon, as well as the form. Lina Inverse had harnessed such a hivemind and constructed them to operate on Ragnarok. Zelas had provided her with devils of Luke Shabranigdu, carved off in hell and pulled through Megiddo. That last little detail had left no traces, to her luck.

"The techniques employed in constructing this place depended on golem mechanics mingled with the Megiddo Flare concept to invoke a soul stream, rather than more direct holy methods," said Dalphin's pawn.

"It is most curious the gods would not use their own magic," Zelas said, because they expected her to. "Perhaps they wished to diminish their own trace to avoid our tracking them?"

Dalphin stared at the machine. "Hmm. It may be, or there is something about the ultimate goal that they cannot do themselves. But I fear we must answer that later."

She clapped and the humans scattered like ants. The scrawny woman continued blabbering, "We have redirected the summon into Megiddo. Within hell, the number of rays account for Lezo, Luke and three unknown hosts."

"What about the ray in this world that broke away? Could it account for the seventh piece?" Dynast asked. Trust Dynast Grausherra to forget there were eight pieces.

"One of these must also belong to the Knight of Shabranigdu," Zelas said. "The seventh piece is yet lost to us, it appears."

"Indeed," Dalphin said. "Could Lina Inverse have finally figured out how to completely destroy a host?"

Zelas had no need to account : yes, Lina could. What remained of her third strike had not even left a ghost. This was nice and all, but explaining the ray that responded into the real world was a problem. Said seventh piece was sealed down south for about four milleniums already, curtsy of the Knight and Sage of Siephied, as well as the Knight of Shabranigdu and a then not so evolved Zelas Metaliom, who had only helped seal them because oops, chimera overlords are bad news. She needed to make sure this was never found out by the wrong people.

Knowing all that meant Zelas didn't feel curiosity, but that's what Zelas had Xelloss for. The machine entranced him enough to make up for her lack, though she nudged him; the amazement he felt was a tad too much Oooh Shiny World and too little Wicked Satisfaction At Approaching World's End. Fascination wasn't meant to be felt by devils, it implied a vested interest in the way things existed. At least he managed to be suitably curious about the mess with the hosts.

Dalphin ordered her pawns to their stations. After even the 'bishop' had left them, Xelloss asked, "So, what do we do now?"

"We wait for my dear followers to decipher the feedback," Dalphin said.

"Can't we just go to hell right away and follow the rays?" Dynast asked.

Dalphin and Zelas exchanged a tired look. Clasping her hands together, Dalphin explained with the patience of a saint, "It would be the equivalent of a beacon for Rangort to find us. We will attempt to calculate the general area of hell first so that we can actually exploit a potential godly blindness, should it have affected Rangort. If it becomes necessary, my people will turn the pillar back on while we are in hell. Until then, let us make ourselves comfortable."

Oh ... she could not stop the onslaught of alarm in her emotions. There was no time to contact Rangort, if she accompanied Dalphin and Dynast on this it would look like she backstabbed the god.

Unexpected things always happened. Dragons made bad jokes. Lost talismen ended up in the sea. Her own devices rendered gods mad.

If not for the sudden panic of Rashat and Raltaak, her emotions would have raised questions. Rather than her specific, Dynast and Grau cast a curious glance at the three.

"Is something—" Dynast started, but before he could finish, Dalphin conjured up a line Hylaker and Rixfalt dolls out of the walls. They began singing, "It's a small world after all, it's a small world after all, ..."

Rashat and Raltaak groaned and whined. Zelas stored her on the spot explanation for her emotions (a claim she did not want to fight a god, Ragradia was enough thank you very much) and went with it. "Oh no, lord Dalphin, must you?"

Dalphin pouted, disappointed not to have gotten fury out of Zelas.

"It raises the spirits of my followers. I must," she whispered, careful to not be overheard.

Dynast didn't get that message.

"There is just one boon and one golden lord, and our smirk means suffering to everyone. Though the Ragnarok divides and the world staffs are tall, it's a small world after all! We'll have it destroyed in no time!" Dynast sang along. He and Grau swayed along to the music, big grins plastered on their faces.

"Ah ah ah," Dalphin said. "Not so crude, lord Dynast."

She whirled to her nearby cult pawns, who had overheard. With sweet words, she assured them Dynast joked around, and do please forgive his poor sense of humor. He's just a little fed up with those many false rumors about devils, off course they wanted to preserve existence. All this she delivered in the most saccharine sing song tone.

"My liege, perhaps we should go outside?" Xelloss asked tensely.

"We can handle this," she said, more out of pride than actual health convictions. But perhaps moreso it was morbid fascination that kept her here.

There stood Dalphin amidst her broken humans dolls, life and doll alike a tacky display of nonsense. She herself the picture of elegance of blue and pearls, she who was named after the sea. No other of the five retainers had a theme so obviously incorporated in her identity. All his this, her act and her decorations, it existed to offend existence. As if existence could be mocked by itself. Whether they liked it or not, they existed and it said something that Dalphin couldn't take the final step and turn herself into a mockery.

What if thousands of years ago, it had been Deep Sea Dalphin who ran into the Sage of Siephied? What if it had been her who stood before a true chimera of their lord and a human soul, her who had learned a mere soul could corrupt a dark lord into the desire to exist?

Xelloss coughed behind his hand. "My liege, but this may be a poor time to contemplate existential matters."

"It's a perfect time," she said. "I'm going to need to feel thrilled eventually and I'm on the trail of something."

"Truly? May I know?"

"I think Dalphin's got a seed of defection too. I'm having idle fantasies of converting her."

"That sounds ... useful, but I beg to be allowed a little leeway when I say ... do we really want her on our side?"

At that moment, Dalphin swirled on top of the machine and sang sweetly. To the horror of Zelas and Xelloss, her entire cult broke out in organized dance about the joys of their totally pro-existence anti mean god movement fueled by optimism.

"Let's go outside."

**· · · · · · ·**

Hours of trying to get outside and failing and wandering echoing halls later, they had their coordinates and sank into the blissful depths of hell. A few cannon fodder spies confirmed that while Rangort was in hell, es disorientation meant e wouldn't be on their head immediately. A marginal relief only, Rangort might have seen the rays anyway or be told about them by angels.

Rangort didn't rampage, which Dalphin assumed was because the god had behind Megiddo. Zelas made a safe bet with herself that e hadn't been exposed for that long, likely because of Luke and Milina. She'd have to look into how strong their fusion magic was soon. For now her priority was making sure nobody on her current side found out she'd been experimenting with chimerizing the remnants of Luke's power, let alone her alliance with Rangort.

The devils separated to explore in three parties, each with their own generals and priests where available. This became four when after breaking apart, Zelas sent Xelloss ahead. He was to do her scouting while she met with her hell team.

She tuned into the magical presence of the two dormant hosts and beelined for them.

Hell's space didn't work on physical principles, but plasmic space formed itself on expectations and will. With its inhabitants being spirits and lately a god, the scenery had much of a physical world. On these plains a few wind smudged hills had risen, but for the most part marshes and swamps stretched out. Roads for souls wound in pointless curves across it. Some pathways spiraled up to end in thin air, others led below the water. Bridges led to other bridges, and some roads had a spatial anomaly that led to random areas.

Milina had called the location Golgotha, which Zelas vaguely recognized as an ancient word for skull place. Now she saw it, she quirked an eyebrow. Far above the ground in the murky olive haze floated a smooth sphere. Fibrizo's style alright, but why the name?

Flying up, she passed by the souls of Ancient Dragons. Once by them, she reduced herself to her humanoid travel form and knocked on the sole detailed feature of the thing : a black, Gothic door. Impatient, she tapped her foot on the wall, but it did not take long for it to open.

Milina peaked out, glowing in the darkness. What a mismatch to the environment, though the look on her face fit right in. If she was here, that meant Rangort had aborted the project around Luke.

"You better be here to explain what the hell happened," Milina sneered. Then she paused and stared. "What is wrong with you?"

She gestured at Zelas's arm, then behind her. Zelas looked. A frizzled wing stuck from her back, her arm was the wrong color and pieces of her toga floated around.

"Did you get caught in the machine or something?"

Zelas forced her projection back in order and said, "That would be greatly preferable, miss Milina."

"To what?"

"To impromptu musical numbers. Dalphin sings." Her voice shook at the memory and it took too long to order her projection.

"Oh. That's so horrible," Milina said without an inch of sincerity.

Zelas felt the need to put on her in place, so she added, "She's my sister. She could've been on my side."

Milina softened just a little. "Maybe you'll get a chance yet."

The words came loaded with all her human weaknesses and broken hopes ... tasty. Zelas couldn't help but enjoy it, and so Milina spotted the game and hardened.

"Your quirks aside," Milina said, "it's time you explain why you summoned the gods already."

"I did no such thing. Dalphin found my Tel al-Metaliom and set her pet humans to operate it. It only appealed the gods because this was default mode, but they adjusted it now to reel in Shabranigdu. They have not put together any other pieces, though, so at least they do not know what it is really for."

"What? How did she find it?"

"Xelloss lost the new ruby talisman back in Kataart. Whatever agent took it has delivered it to Deep Sea Dalphin. She forced Xelloss to use it to track miss Lina Inverse, tracking him he went. We were cornered. Now she and Dynast are coming to retrieve the two hosts that Fibrizo caught. We need their identity purged before they betray anything."

Milina nodded. "Alright. Come in."

Within Golgotha, the nihilism gave way for glassy corridors, mirrored doors and obsidian statues. Milina's presence illuminated where ever they passed. Silver chains lay about areas where she fancied struggles had taken place, if the damaged walls were any indication. Where once Fibrizo's power had flown, Rangort's holiness had replaced it in foundation, though not form or effort.

"What is this place? It would appear Hellmaster has designed it, not lord Rangort."

"Lezo thinks he built it to trap the souls of Knights and Sages before he used it to collect the hosts of Shabranigdu," Milina said. "Speaking of hosts, do you have word yet of Lina?"

"As you seem to have forgotten, I require my talisman and my priest for this."

"How about Luna's talisman?"

"It is not yet completed, unfortunately. Speaking of communicating with our allies, is there any chance you could speak to lord Rangort before I am under attack?"

"No angel is able to receive visions from hir, we can only speak if we write down something and that depends on whether e pays attention."

A silence fell as Zelas scourged her options for a way out. To betray Dalphin and Dynast right now, was the best for the moment, but she had no garantee Rangort would listen, or be lenient afterward. Perhaps she should flee altogether, leave her behavior a riddle? Filia could teleport long distances, maybe she ought to just grab her and Claire and leave, they could always stay a step ahead. But this route would rob her of her proximity to Tel al-Metaliom and the instability of the area meant there was no quick teleporting in. Besides, she disliked the idea of giving a dragon this much control over her fate.

Whatever the case, she had no interest in open rebellion. It was only a matter of time before Lei Shabranigdu was unsealed. Whispers and rumors already went about the evershifting ranks of the lesser devils. Should Shabranigdu wake to a world where she was a known traitor, he would find her and command her to do whatever he wanted. As her creator, she would be unable to disobey.

This one fear weighed down every other option Zelas had and decided her choice.

Milina opened the largest door yet, leading to a domed hall. In its center stood a pentagon table of which each side corresponded to an wall. Every one of these walls had an alcove with a round cage at their center, three of which had prisoners. Two were the unawakened, the third what contained the poor soul Lina had faced down three years ago.

The two other survivors, Lezo and Luke, sat at the table with the Knight. Well, more like slouched on it in Luke's case.

Lezo inclined his head, she returned the gesture.

"Milina let you in, so I presume you've given an adequate explanation for the recent events," Lezo said. "I would still like to hear them."

Zelas repeated her story, adding in more details this time.

"Woah, this sucks big time," Laust said. "Your only shot at staying in grace of both the sides you're playing is if you can get Rangort here before anyone sees ya with im and do a lot of crafty explaining. Problem is, Rangort's not here."

"I have noticed," Zelas said. "I intend to secure my position with the devils. Mister Lezo, mister Luke, I would appreciate that you destroy the identities of those two hosts. They will be found, but let them silent if this happens."

"Off course," Lezo said. "We can arrange this. Eris, Ozel!"

Out of a door within one of the corner pillars, Lezo's two admirers stepped. One ager, the other serene, they said, "Yes, lord Lezo?"

"Please clean up our magic artifacts and prepare for the spiritual corrosion of the hosts. Do not worry about Megiddo's pull. We intend to let them go soon."

"And the rest of us?" Laust asked. "It's kinda dull sitting around here, I'd love to do something."

"You must stay here and help Lezo," Zelas said. "Mister Luke, I would appreciate it if you took your swarm and scatter them. Perhaps this will disorient the searchers honing in on Shabranigdu's aura. While you are at it, please meet my priest and ensure he sees this place."

"Why?" Luke asked.

"So he can honestly say he found it and told me, thus I shall not need to explain Deep Sea Dalphin why I am not surprised by this location. After all, it is a fabrication of Fibrizo taken over by a god and I am known to be eager for information."

"You sure have this planned out well ahead, haven't you?" Luke said. "If your priest doesn't know about us, how can we expect him to not fatally harm Milina? The guy's the fourth most powerful devil walking right now!"

"Do not worry yourself, Xelloss has specific orders he is not allowed to destroy any maidens of light and the brooding souls they are keeping on a leash. He believes I speak of others, but he shall figure it out once he sees you like this. He already thought it was a too obvious order to begin with. Now, if miss Milina could try to reach lord Rangort nevertheless?"

"I'll try," Milina said.

Zelas left the hall, only for Lezo to follow her.

"What will you do?" he asked her.

"I'm going to play the part of the evil world destroying demon duke desperate to revive her king. What else can I do?"

"You're up against Rangort, it's madness. Wouldn't it be wiser to drop the charade and stay in Rangort's graces?" Lezo said.

"I keep hearing madness declarations today. Have all dictionaries burned when I was off building Tel al-Metaliom? Has some vile spell impaired grammatical abilities of whatever hapless victim it hit?"

"Let me rephrase this : your entire species strives for world wide murder-suicide. You want to live, but you do not possess a normal survival instinct. Are you certain you are not undermining yourself?"

Without truly meaning to, she dropped her human projection. Lezo had a snarling wolf in his face a second later. "Do not presume to know who I am, human."

"I meant no offense, my esteemed Beast Monarch," Lezo said. He calmly opened his eyes. "However, you have never met the Lord of Nightmares and did not receive the same gift as your son has. Or would you claim this gift meant nothing?"

She couldn't counter that.

Begrudging, she drew back into a human projection. "I ... I will admit that a desire to the end the world still exists in me. What of it? It is my mind that decides who I am, not only my base instincts. What Shabranigdu left me as is but a small part of what I am now."

"As one who nearly ended the world I loved out of a desire to see, I ask that you practice caution. Your will may not be entirely your own. The way Shabranigdu had influenced our existence may be different, but he nevertheless lies at our roots. He is not small and harmless, but he wants you to believe so."

"This is not the time to plant doubt in me," she growled.

"Is there ever a time? Or rather, what better time than the hour of our weakness?"

She could say a hundred things, but she refused. All she gave him was a sneer before leaving, for he was a young dead human who presumed to know about devils like her. Though, he did succeed, if only because deep down she already asked herself whether she truly did what the Lord of Nightmares wanted.

**· · · · · · ·**

For an hour, Zelas strayed around in a rough hundred mile radius of Golgotha, pretending to search for traces of devils rather than gods. What a vanity. The more she thought about her explanation, the less sane it sounded. The talisman Xelloss lost just happened to reach Dalphin? And Dalphin just happened to have humans who figured out the machine? She wouldn't have believed it herself, and the only fruit her speculation bore was paranoia.

On a positive note, she found a trail that could only be his : teacups in the corner of a bridge, teacups in a lifeless tree, teacups everywhere. All neatly conjured up by imprinted copious constructive thought onto ectoplasm. Off course he'd figured that out already.

She stopped in a bog to feed. Wailing souls condemned to endlessly drown provided good miasma, but no relief. In fact, it was here her first problem appeared.

Before her, a dull gray crocodile with eight legs slithered up. Grumbling about ectoplasm, Raltaak beat his scaled wings to rid himself of the muck. Only when he his eyes free did he notice Zelas. Startled, he bowed.

"Lord Greater Beast, I am pleased to have found you. Lord Deep Sea Dalphin wished to let you know we know where the hosts are."

"Oh? Do we?"

Raltaak pointed the tip of his wing at the distant green cumulonimbus hiding Golgotha.

"Tell me what her reasoning is," Zelas asked.

"We took it for a settlement of the Ancient Dragons," Raltaak said. "But it is too remote for a species that would strive to bring peace. They must guard something."

"Then let us go," Zelas said. She spread her wings and took off. Quietly, Raltaak followed her.

He followed her silence for a few minutes. Just as Golgotha became visible far above, he asked, "Why aren't you surprised about this?"

"What is there to be surprised about? Why wouldn't a bunch of good two wings be involved with guarded the pieces? I suspected it already."

"Oh? Why? With Rangort cut off, wouldn't the hosts have broken out already? Mere dragons can't be enough to hold them. They just hung around."

"Resident magic surely," Zelas muttered. "Lord Deep Sea Dalphin must have reached the same conclusion."

"I see," he muttered.

The subtle emotion of disbelief dripped off of Raltaak, combined with strong suspicion.

He already lowered his speed. Soon he'd try to escape.

This was it, she had to clean up this unexpected misfortune.

Zelas swung around just as Raltaak dashed. He escaped her first strike, but in a place that bound them to dynamics, even just ectoplasmic ones, Zelas had the benefit. She changed to a swamp serpent, shot over him under cover of mist, wails and grime. He thought he escaped by flight, the fool. At the swamp's edge, she shot up as her true wolf form. So much weaker than her, Raltaak wasn't even worthy prey.

She bit through his wings with a quick snap, then pushed him into the ground.

"Wh-what ar-" She ground her boot down on his jaw, shutting him up on both planes. She herself raised her head.

The other devils wouldn't recognize the clicking noise she emitted, but Milina would. The small risk it carried in echo was worth it, Milina arrived soon.

Milina stopped dead before the scene. "What happened? Did he figured out something?"

"Indeed. Miss Milina, do please summon mister Luke. We require an excuse as to why mister Raltaak is about to cease. Perhaps you can feign to have been attacked."

Milina rolled her eyes. With the utmost bland face, she screamed the most convincing damsel scream Zelas had heard in a long time. It was almost too perfect to be true, but Zelas appreciated the ridiculous contrast. It even echoed across the caveless landscape.

Within seconds, said landscape exploded in an inferno spiced with Provoked Love Interest feels. Luke rose like a red sun, hollering something about Milina holding on, he'd be there in a second. Pillar of fire rose into the murky skies, lightning shot ahead. For all the dying, Luke still held a commendable amount of power.

Milina rubbed her forehead. "I wish he'd be less embarrassing about this."

Luke burst into the valley, red hot fury all over until he didn't see an enemy. Zelas tossed Raltaak in his path. Without a second thought, Luke obliterated him.

Milina sighed and gave Luke a careless wave.

"Milina? You're okay?"

"Yes, I am," she said. "You already did what you needed to do."

"Actually, I would be most grateful if you wait ten seconds, then head west and find me. A small attack on me would be even better," Zelas said.

Milina nodded at Luke. "What she said."

"Whatever you say, Milina!" he declared.

Luke sped off, but Zelas lingered to feast on the hatred Milina felt for being a morality chain.

Following her snack, she continued on the trail of Xelloss.

Xelloss made good work of not being around anyone else where Zelas found him. True to his word, he'd been exploring souls. How fruitful it was? Well, she doubted the clutch of eroded spirits had anything useful to tell, yet he busied himself poking at them.

"Xelloss," she said.

At once he abandoned his game and bowed before her.

"Do you see that gray thing in the sky?" She pointed towards Golgotha and handed him a script that explained what it was, plus the formation of the dragon guards. On cue, he told her this.

"Good. Well will go there now. In the meantime you will tell me stories of successful schemes, I need a mood lift."

"As you command," he said happily before launching into prattlefest. Good grief, could he prattle.

Xelloss didn't lie on his own. However, she could order him to, though this was useless when it came to deceiving the other lords. Lying was contrary to Xelloss's ingrained identity and they'd taste the loathing he held for the practice. Off course, this weakness could become strength. Zelas had once ordered him to lie about an unknown amount of successes for trivial plots, up to his discretion. Using remote communication, she could not taste whether he lied, so she didn't know which ones. As such, he had a reserve of successful reports to help her generate moods.

As expected, he's thrown in a little extra. Not only did he report successes, he'd also done a few extra missions she had no idea about. Apparently, she now owned a wine factory in Zephyria.

Deep Sea Dalphin, Dynast Grausherra, Grau and Rashaat had gathered in a clearing, surrounded by thick concern but also mild excitement. Her fellow retainers had taken to projecting their truer forms. Dynast appeared in his wide, spiky armor and the fraying darkness around him. True to being a caricature of the long gone knights of Siephied, everything about him was a foolish aspiration to greatness that all but himself recognized for the joke he embodied.

But Deep Sea Dalphin, in her lay abnormal beauty for a devil. A mermaid in base concept, she had no fish tail where expected, but malgrowth of sponge, coral and medusine extensions, all colored wild and topical. A dolphin's tail longer than her main body grew out of her hair, sleek and gray patterned. Twisted as it was of life's order, every move held grace.

Xelloss scraped his throat. "My liege, you are doing it again."

Hmm. Damn the appeal of manipulators, of mysteries and of lethality.

"Xelloss, I will tell you something now that allows you to guess a little of our plan. Dwell on it as you wish, preferably with surprise."

When she landed near the gathering, Zelas blurted out, "Luke is able to control the power of Shabranigdu at will. He got mister Raltaak."

"Oh my, how unfortunate. You saw it?" Dalphin said. Needle teeth glittered behind her thin lips, forming a smile that split her face.

"I heard more than I saw, but I recognized the screams. I believe mister Raltaak attacked an angel, after which Luke attacked. They must be allies."

"Did he now?" Dalphin's emotions were too even to read. The doubt she already felt could be for their current situation.

"Dammit. We need all the forces we can get," Dynast said with his usual muddle of stale anger.

"Then let us ensure we need as little as possible. He is out there now. We can handle the dragon souls and the only other possible opponent is Lezo Greywords, who took two Giga Slaves." She thought hard about getting drunk in a wine factory as she spoke. The novelty already wore off, but so did it for her fellow devils.

"You know where we intend to go?"

"The dragon formations resembled a guard routine I have seen during the War of the Devil's Descent, so I took note of it and pointed out the location to my liege," Xelloss said.

"We came as soon as we realized where it must be," Zelas said. "How did you two realize?"

"Observation," Dalphin said, an answer too simple for Zelas's tastes. Before she could question further, chaos set the board to its hand.

In the sky between them and Golgotha, the clouds broke. Rangort worm hir way down in a furious spiral, sweeping around in search.

Zelas closed her claw around Dynast's helmet and pushed her halfway into the mud, hunching down as well. Grau, Xelloss and Rashaat followed suit and Dalphin disappeared entirely into the water.

Xelloss as a black cone blended with the darkness, but Zelas and her bright colors stood out. How was she supposed to know she'd ever need to develop physical camouflage? Zelas forced her bright colors away, taking on black and brown.

A healthy Rangort would have noticed them across the astral plane already, but not in this way. Rangort's projection was on the small side, perhaps only fifty meters. With the surrounding trees, it was hard to see.

"That is not the location Luke went to, is it?" Dalphin asked, bubbles rising as she spoke. "Where is e going?"

"Uhm ... " Dynast started as he sunk deeper into the marsh. "I was hungry. There were a bunch of Ancient Dragons there, and maybe one of them went to fetch Rangort. Maybe a lot of them did. They saw me. I thought I .. could ... have a snack ..."

Zelas growled and Dalphin narrowed her eyes while little bubbled popped from her mouth. Dynast submerged.

Rangort uncurled. Slowly, e crossed the landscape.

Rangort projected eyes. All over itself. E could see onto the ectoplasmic plane about as well as a devil, even without the flow. E was still stronger than all the devils here combined. Unlike Ragradia, e was well fed too.

Zelas dismissed the idea of communication. Rangort had no mouth or ears going, just eyes. E meant to kill.

"Will we risk going up?" Zelas asked.

"We must," Dalphin said. "We are too close to give up. Let us do it while e is at least partially blinded. This is the best chance we get."

"Let's spread out. Xelloss, come along," Zelas said. "We're less likely the be discovered if we take up less space."

"Absolutely," Dalphin said. "Come, Rashaat."

They left quicker than Dynast could follow.

Zelas and Xelloss took the forms of foxes, staying close to the ground until immediately to the right of Golgotha. As the structure loomed above them, Xelloss at last asked, "I supposed our alliance with the gods has run out?"

What a pointless question by now, fueled more by uncertainty than anything.

"Is it not obvious? Xelloss, listen. Go inside and find miss Milina, ask her for the center. Find mister Laust there and tell him to hide. Return and tell Dalphin, Dynast and I the location of the hosts."

"As you command ... am I correct in assuming we're about to dissolve part of our own plan for coverage?"

Zelas nodded. "In part, but we can put it back together later. Miss Milina will not know you're about to betray the location, keep this in mind."

He bowed and left, forsaking a projection save for quick, small projections to orient.

To the left, Dalphin slowly floated up, constantly adjusting her coloration.

Both had theirs, neither was enough. One of the Ancient Dragons saw Dalphin, cried out and caused the swarm to disperse. That was it. Rangort came.

The devils scattered just as Rangort launched hirself into their midst, giving off more rage than Zelas had ever imagined to exist in the god.

E honed in on Zelas immediately. She speared up past Golgotha, meeting Dalphin and the others at the top. Rangort thundered after them, scattering them again. The size of Golgotha allowed her to remain out of sight just long enough to submerge into the swamp.

Dalphin landed close to her.

"E targets you? How curious." Like she remarked on a broken teacup. "Well, whatever your history is, be our diversion, will you? E can't do ranged attacks, use that."

"Fine. I'll let lord Dynast know."

"Excellent. I will submerge until I see my chance." She didn't wait for a reply before submerging.

Zelas went onto autopilot. Attacking Rangort head on would be madness, but she could feign it. Spreading her wings, she poured detail into her form and flew. Rangort spotted her, twisting attention away from a poorly hidden Dynast. Zelas howled, spilling words through the tone till Dynast got it. Diversion.

No ... he didn't get it. He just fled. Idiot!

There was no chance to reach use Golgotha as obstacle again. Zelas fled across the plains. Too slow. Pain tore her back open before she could even look back. Rangort's weight forced her into the slimy ground. When Zelas managed to twist her head, Rangort blocked the sky. Hundreds of eyes bore down on her.

The smallest tremor gave away the next attack; Zelas evaded the piercing tail by letting the swamp pull her under.

Real quicksand didn't suck anyone below, but the souls whose thoughts formed this scenery often thoughts so, and the land obeyed. Zelas acknowledge the ectoplastics laws as long as it suited her. Rangort's tail weighed after her, striking just as Zelas let go.

The ectoplasmic world was invisible to her from the astral plane, so only a gamble saved her. She reprojected about a mile away from Rangort, part of her wing merged with a tree. She tore loose, trying to scrape away the contamination with her claws.

Rangort expanded size untill it didn't matter anymore that e had been a mile away. The expansion caused a shockwave that threw Zelas further away. Having no more time, she tore off her wing and corresponding part of her astral form. Now she could move again, she became a snake again. Less for Rangort to aim at, she got out from under hir just long enough to see the sky for a few seconds. Then the god was over her again, closer and closer. The horizon disappeared behind beige plates as Rangort folded hir heavy body around the area. Zelas only saw god and swamp, nothing else.

Another shock wave rippled the water, throwing both of them down. Zelas barely slipped through the plates that crashed down.

Clear in the sky now, she saw the shockwave's cause : Golgotha had fallen. The top had broken off and two thin blue pillars rose to Megiddo, each surrounded by churning red.

Rangort forgot Zelas and sped to Golgotha, trying to place hir body around the fleeting souls. Shabranigdu's power hooked for a few seconds, but not even Rangort could defy the pull of Megiddo. The power burned through hir scales and e withdraw to the astral plane.

The hosts returning to the world of the living, ready to slip into whatever available embryo formed right now.

After a few seconds, Rangort flicked back into form, now curled around Golgotha's ruins. E had new prey.

On top of the broken wall stood Xelloss. For all his speed, it did not matter. The god stroke down. Zelas just barely registered Dalphin also took a hit.

Xelloss stood no chance at survival a god's attention. Shifting back into warrior form she drew both swords and threw herself ahead.

Rangort's astral form blocked out all sight. She couldn't see him anymore. Didn't know whether he lived. Didn't matter, she'd give him a chance. He just needed one chance, he'd escape. He always did.

She plunged her swords and fangs into Rangort, breaking through the exoskeleton. The flesh below stung with holiness, but she ripped into it deeper. Zelas wouldn't lose now, not her plan, not her priest, nothing. All the pain pouring out of the god became her nourishment. Her jaw tightened, the wall between astral and form blurred.

So caught up, the tightening force around her middle barely matter. It should have. Zelas was torn off and slammed into the ground, her limbs crunched in the grip of Rangort's tail. Bones that shouldn't exist broke. Howling, Zelas crawled into the swamp to hide. Maybe Xelloss had hidden here too.

She sought him, but only found a glow deep down. Dalphin's medusine tail and the glint of her eyes. Zelas ignored her, but Dalphin caught up.

Zelas remembered to stop breathing the water, to stop projecting bones. The urge to ask whether she'd seen Xelloss burned on her tongue, but she kept it back.

"Dynast fled," Dalphin said. The slight smile on her face and the twisted glee told more.

"I know. Megiddo got the hosts."

"Yes. Let us go home and find their new bodies," Dalphin said eagerly. She had no right to be so excited, not now.

"I have to go find Xelloss," she growled. "My plan failed. I shouldn't have lost my priest over this. I should have been smarter."

The hollow string of words fell on barren earth. "Why are you so displeased? We succeeded!"

Zelas snapped her jaws shut right before Dalphin's face. "I just took a blow from a full powered god! If e wasn't half blind I'd be dead! I may have lost my priest as well! And you expect me to be happy about having two host that cannot awaken anytime soon?"

Dalphin held up webbed hands, smiling sweetly. "I meant no offense. Go find your priest. We will see you in the realm of the living."

Dalphin left, and Zelas could not. Even as Rangort remained around Golgotha, Zelas searched until she found a wisp of black and purple far away.

He lay torn apart between two dead trees, pieces of his power on the branches. She sank deep when she took her true form, but managed to pry him off. Like a rag, he hung over her arm.

"Xelloss?"

He stayed still, his arm fraying off. She nudged his shoulder with her claw.

"Xelloss," she growled. "Answer."

He finally opened his eyes, then closed them again in his familiar squint. With an apologetic smile, he said, "My apologies, my liege. I'll do better next time."

"I shall hold you to that," she said.

He needed to feed and she still had business in Golgotha.

Far away, Rangort surrounded hirself with dragon souls and angels. Perhaps they communicate, arranged for a search. She could not muster the attention to figure it out.

Golgotha's ruins sank with inches at a time. Souls clung to the edges in a desperate effort to escape the water, bringing a thick fog with them. In wolf form, Xelloss on her back, she slipped by them.

Without Milina's light, she could not retrace the path by memory, but the scent of blood and trail of pain led her where she needed to be. Traces of a battle scarred the walls, energy burning down some corridors. How had Dalphin brought down this whole place?

Half of the central hall had collapsed, the sky was visible above. The cages had broken. Guts, torn flesh and blood covered the table, the walls, the people in the hall.

Judging by those people alone, one would not guess a battle. Lezo calmly sat on his chair as if he hadn't been injured. Ozel swept the floor around him, while Eris scrubbed off the chair.

"-wonder if we can use this for ... oh, look what mangy dogs just dragged themselves in," Eris said.

Barely had she spoken, or Luke and Milina looked through the other door. They dropped whatever they were doing and entered, followed by Laust.

"Did they try to force any of you into reincarnation?" Zelas asked.

"No," Lezo said. "Dalphin and her general went straight for the two hosts. I believe Dalphin had a talisman. She cut open the seals swifter than I had expected, and I'm afraid my remainder of Shabranigdu's power did not hold up well enough."

"She was so much faster!" Eris said. "Lord Lezo surely could have taken her if not for that and that rock."

Zelas didn't care. She let Xelloss sit down on the first piece of rubble near the door, then slipped into her aristrocrat projection. She needed more rest than she was willing to let on, so she let the form lean.

"Can I know what we are doing?" Xelloss asked in his typical tone. The way he spoke set loose her tension. He'd live.

"We'll meet the others later. I still can't tell you," she said evenly, but her face grinned and she flicked her tail at Lezo.

Lezo took the cue and spoke, "Your lord intends to collect pieces of Siephied and Shabranigdu in a form we can manage. Earthlord Rangort is only aware of the former and believed the Beast Monarch merely wants to stack the deck for her own survival. Now, Rangort will be under the impression your lord has ulterior plans. This is true, but they are not as much of an anti-god movement as Rangort thinks."

"Ah, and there miss Lina would come in?" Xelloss said. "My liege, you must have learned something during miss Lina's defeat of the third piece of Shabranigdu."

Sometimes she just couldn't help but be proud of him, even if his incessant curiosity and fascination had undesirable consequences. "Yes, I have. I will tell you a little more later, but I still need you to say you to be a little curious about the machine. Hold your curiosity."

"What do you plan to do now? Wait till you can explain Rangort?" Laust asked.

"No. Right now that is suicide. In time, lord Rangort will reconnect to the flow. Until then, I will stay close to Deep Sea Dalphin. Unless lord Lezo can forge me a new demonsblood talisman soon, we shall the other one back."

"If you take a piece of the Wall on your way out, we can begin the manufacturing of it as a security measure," Lezo said. "All we need now is an explanation for the ray that vanished in the other world. Surely Dalphin will search the direction it went. We'd hate for Dynast and Dalphin to find a fully operational piece of Ruby Eye, even if it were a chimera."

"Hmm? Am I missing something?" Xelloss asked.

"Yes, but only in the name of plausible lies. We will focus on our cover for the ray. Truth be said, it is simple. I believe that the shield has been adjusted during the pillar's call. The Sage of Siephied most likely did so. It won't create a pull next time they start it, so we just need something else for the pillar to pick up next time Dalphin activates."

Before Laust could even blink, she had grabbed him by the neck.

"Also, you should eat," Zelas said as she dropped him before Xelloss.

Smiling a little wider, he bore his staff through Laust's back, pinning him to the ground. The scream alone foretold a feast. Laust clawed at the ground on pure instinct. Blood seeped out onto the stone floor, if only because he thought of himself as bleeding. On the astral plane, he certainly did.

"Wait!" Milina called out. She spread her wings, surely to do something stupid, but Ozel stepped in her way. Milina stopped.

"Zelas, he is our ally! Find some other way!" she called. Luke gently tried coaxing her away, but she shook him off.

"This is the most sound proof method, miss Milina," Zelas said. "Why would I take a meaningless risk by letting the ray go unexplained? Besides, one cannot betray those one never had loyalty to."

Milina's hatred was a feast mingled with the disdain of Luke, Eris and Ozel (complimentary of their excessive loyalty). Zelas kept her face as straight as possible. Killing your allies was one thing, looking sadistic while doing it another; the latter inspired fear a tad too much.

Laust craned his neck, looking up at Xelloss. Zelas leaned on Xelloss's shoulder, so she was just in his range of sight.

"You promised I'd not cease," he said through gritted teeth.

"Xelloss did promise that, yes, but mister Laust, you must understand I have no compulsions about keeping his promises. It merely suits me to have a servant who has such a reputation," Zelas said.

"My liege, may I experiment a little?" Xelloss asked. "Garv could give devils and dragons power as he pleased. I'd like to understand how he did so now that I have observed miss Lina tamper with life law circles."

"You may," Zelas said. "While you are at it, try to fill up. You need it."

Laust coughed up a trickle of power; it mingled with the mess left by the hosts. He croaked, "You really are something, wolf pack. Your best deception ... it's that you two really are loyal to one another. It's easy to forget what you are when I could taste that."

Zelas shrugged. "That is your fault, not mine. Right now, it serves us for your identity to cease and your soul to return through Megiddo. Xelloss?"

As Xelloss dug his staff into the lungs of Shabranigdu's knight, Zelas leaned on his shoulder and took in the remnant miasma. As any true devil, he ate as he had to, but it came with the face of a petulant toddler who wouldn't eat their spinach. Zelas herself liked a more refined meal.

Fascination kept his interest regardless of taste. While barely visible to her, whatever he did on the life law spell field held his rapt attention. He and his peculiar ability to mess with spells. He was too obviously happy with the world, and he'd worried her today. She ran her hand over his hair, like she did with her pet wolves in front of mortals. This, however, was for him alone. As hollow and deliberate it was, it didn't so much evoke a feeling to either, but it was not like astral beings had their own signs. They used those of the mortals for such small things.

When Laust's identity had fragmented near oblivion, she reached into the chest cavity and pulled out the heart. With that, the soul blanked and Megiddo pulled it in.

"Did you learn what you wanted to know?"

"Not all, but it certainly was interesting," he said.

Less small things, like letting him have his fun and feeding when she herself had injuries, those might almost be called altruistic. But honestly, was it not logical first and foremost? Xelloss with his blessing from the Lord of Nightmares herself, with his ability to channel another devil without dying. She needed him to be around. Xelloss was her evidence that her chosen path was the will of the Lord of Nightmares.

**· · · · · · ·**


	21. Claire's Concentration

**· · · · · · ·**

Under the scorching sun, she appeared just as a little girl curious about the warriors. Only the best Zenaffa wielders knew their armor well enough to hear them whisper : it was no mere child watching them. Like the good Sailoon soldiers they were, the soldiers didn't ever voice this out loud. Even those that asked, they did so in silence to their superiors. The answer they received bound them by duty and honor to keep the secret, but most of all, their pride as citizen of Sailoon kept their tongue.

Humans took pride and joy in their success. Those mastering Zenaffa armors often felt it, but the intensity lessened the more common the achievement became. They simply found new things to take pride in. Tricks, inventions, formations, driving on the fuel for their own cravings. As every day, they came together to display their ability in the palace square, and as every Claire, came to eat until it became a personal ritual. Her very first. And when they knew she watched, they always tried a little extra.

If not a social kind of love, at the very least she loved the craft and the routine. So when one shiny day an angel arrived, she felt like a violation of her order had occurred. Yes, an irrational feeling, but it would not just go away. An undesired side effect of having such a small mental space? Lyos's proximity turning her more human? Alas, she had to wonder later. If an angel had come, trouble would too.

This angel took the form of a mouse, but on the astral plane appeared as a bygone emerald dragon.

"Lord Ragradia?" he asked, sitting up on his tiny hind legs.

"Yes?" Claire asked.

"Lord Rangort has informed me you await your rebirth. I have come to bring you to safety, as it turns out Zelas Metaliom has ulterior motives. She and the other retainers came to hell to free the remaining hosts of Shabranigdu, having tracked them down with the machine. Lord Rangort believes we can still execute the plan as it was presented, minus whatever Zelas intended. Once Lina Inverse returns, we will put it back on track our way. You can still be reborn."

"Oh?"

Hmm. Lina knew everything and Ragradia's rebirth had never been the final goal. No, the true outcome would see Rangort dead. Even if it would help existence, such a thing would not go over well with the god in question. If Rangort was able to get into her mind, once recovered, Claire would be dead. Too much of a risk, feigning ignorance and joining Rangort was off the charts.

Knowing Zelas, she merely played along with the other retainers to keep her cover. With the gods blinded, the devils would soon try to free Lei Shabranigdu. If _he_ knew what what Zelas up to, Zelas and Xelloss would be dead. But only if, which looked unlikely if Zelas openly aided the others.

"Lord Ragradia? At risk of being disrespectful, I must urge that we depart now. Earthlord Rangort has ordered the recruitment of Sailoon, they will likely resist."

"Oh." She mentally called for Lyos and closed a small hand around the mouse, preventing the angel from withdrawing. "I don't understand why ever Earthlord Rangort would need to recruit Sailoon?"

The mouse wriggled for a bit, the dragon on the astral cast her a confused look. "Ehm, well ... we will go to Kataart to reclaim your power."

"I'm not going near Lei Shabranigdu," she said. Lyos rounded the corner to the training square.

"But lord Rangort said—"

"Lord Rangort is cut off from direct communication and was subjected to a power that distorts the mind. If I should be in Kataart, I would have stayed here."

Lyos jumped across the bush that gave her shade, by then well informed of the situation. On the astral plane, he grabbed the angel and knocked them out, carving down his power deep enough to give Megiddo a pull on the mortal soul.

The sun still shone, the Sailoon soldiers still practiced, birds chirped, real mice skittered a few meters away. All the humans had seen was Lyos's sudden arrival.

He feigned not knowing her well, walking up to the soldiers instead. Through their shared telepathy, though, he was loud. A barrage of restrained panic poured into Claire's mind, threatening to muddle her reasoning. Lyos had experience with high tension situations, Claire hated that her own brain did not.

"~ Make up your mind. ~" Lyos said. "~ These guys want to fight, and I bet you that Phil and Amelia do just as much. ~"

"~ I want to leave. You, the angelsblood talisman and Filia should not fall to Rangort's claws either; they may not know you and Luna are even here. We relocate, contact Zelas. Make a new plan that starts with calling Lina Inverse back. Sailoon should feign cooperation until then. ~"

"~ I don't like that at all. We're not weaklings? I bet you I and Luna can deal with all those dragons! ~"

She smiled at Lyos's eagerness, then dumped every single thing that could take them out into his mind. Sleep spells, Zenaffa armors around them, dragon piles, heat from laserbreath, and so on.

He had a very simple answer, and they agreed to disagree. He'd stay as long as possible, throwing all his heroic willpower at the situation. She reminded him Luna would split, and if he revealed his presence here, that would jeopardize her as well. She would not be happy.

"~ I don't care. ~"

He was all too human. Hopefully, that would not stick.

**· · · · · · ·**

As Lyos found Zelgadis and organized a defense, Claire made her way deeper into the palace. Her heart beat too fast, the sensation fouler than it tasted. As an astral being, only the pure emotion was detectable, the physical effects had always eluded her. Fear wasn't a foul taste, it was a biological state. No matter her age or knowledge, it crept into her soul. Changing body did not help at all; her brain was the constant feature of all. Such a singular organ, dominating all of her ... humans weren't small, they were this.

The servants were up and about as soon as the military gave the warning. As she ran, she had to avoid worried people urging her to come with them. Even as she was in the form of a middle aged woman, they tried this. Typical flock behavior that wasn't so antsy up close. She figured out how to reject them quickly; tell them she was in charge of looking for those lagging.

Filia was in the palace's smith workshop. If Claire could get to her, she could teleport her to find everyone else. Maybe on their way out, they could alter the fusion magic shield over Sailoon, which would require on the spot alterations. As it stood, the dragons could just scale the walls on raw strength, even if the shield disabled their flight magic.

Claire sent Filia a warning, only to learn they were already inside. Filia's jumbled thoughts were hard to decipher, but Claire made out two dragons had teleported in ahead of everyone. They knew Filia by name, so Rangort must have found an indirect way to communicate with hir followers.

Filia tried to teleport away, but the dragons were teleporters too. Hitching onto her flow, they dragged her back, claimed all her magic items and knocked her out.

Claire's run had come to a halt.

What now?

Lyos didn't know either, but went on his his strategic ideas anyway. Maybe she could get to the shield in another way? Where was Luna anyway?

Claire stood still in an empty corridor, forcing her breath to normal. It didn't make sense to be afraid. It served no purpose. Rinse, repeat ... didn't work.

This was a horrible time for her brain to develop this response. She should not need this emotion, her mind knew what to do. Fear was for organics and devils.

As the dragons closed around the city, one teleportation circle after another, the drumming of her heart sped up her breathing. It had to be the fault of Lyos being closer, this had to be temporary. How could she make it stop in this body? It messed with her focus.

Somewhere to the east, Xelloss passed the barrier without notice. That helped, a little. He could be a way out, she'd be his priority. Then the angelsblood talisman (with Luna), machine blueprint source (Val) and Siephied channel (Filia).

She forced herself to walk. The palace yet quiet, only in the distance did the shouting of humans rise.

Xelloss would look in the places he had seen her before, starting with the palace. She could alert him, but if any other angels scried for her, they would notice them both. She kept her flow influence low and only received. Breaking into a run, she arrived at the room where she and Zelgadis experimented with prototypes.

She also sought out Val and ... couldn't find him.

Oh, not now, _please_.

He must have seen the dragons and panicked, raising that strange hollow around him to hide, shutting her out by accident.

She ran for the room where she had always dispersed Zelgadis her knowledge. Xelloss would find it eventually, he'd was already near Zelgadis. If her bet was on, they'd talk soon.

Once there, she scribbled down a quick note : _I will find the moon and you must seek the night. The day was eaten by the serpent._

Any ally of Rangort coming here would see just another bit of bad poetry; Zelgadis wrote similar mush in secret to express how he wandered the wastelands of his soul. A more discerning mind would notice Zelgadis preferred rock metaphors and had an uncanny tendency of rage against doll collections.

As she penned the last letters, she hesitated.

The most rational thing would be to let Xelloss take her away, worry about the rest later. She wished she could do that, and more than ever she hated that she couldn't.

She _had_ to ensure the survival of as many lives as possible. Luna Inverse and the angelsblood talisman were important for this, she could not shed or risk them the way Xelloss and Zelas might. If they tried to save their hides and abandon it all, it'd be over.

Did that logic hold? They already had Filia, they would have to visit the dragons anyway. Xelloss could handle that ... but she didn't trust him to do so without murder. Better get him away ...

A world where the only allies she had were either too weak or too cruel, and her fear was so useless yet true.

She put the note down and left.

Scrying the palace area for a way out, she found Sylphiel. How peculiar. The Sailoon royals, Lyos, Zelgadis and everyone else were engaged in battle down south. All enemies marked by magic, yet there was Sylphiel and Memphis.

Oh. She'd have to ask Xelloss how deliberate he'd been when planting Sylphiel on the dragon's side. Either him or the Sage of Siephied must've had the idea.

Sylphiel marched down the temple walls, heading straight for an corner covered with vines, intent to move under cover of the crowded garden behind it. While Claire made her way there, she kept track of the conversation and emotions of the two. Memphis wrung her hands, muttering half hearted reasons why Sylphiel shouldn't do this. Apparently the shrine maiden intended to hijack the temple as a teleportation front or something like that. Claire dismissed the information, she had another purpose.

Just as Sylphiel floated across the wall, Claire peaked up the other side.

"Ack!" Sylphiel almost lost her spell, but Claire grabbed the magic and pulled it together.

"Miss Claire?"

"I'd be much obliged if either of you could escort me out of Sailoon."

Memphis in her armor shot up. "And who are you?"

"Aqualord Ragradia, about a month or so from rebirth if my sibling doesn't mess things up," she said.

"Yeah, right," Memphis snorted. "Like I'd believe that. Sylphy, you've gotten—"

Claire grew a wing and tapped Memphis's Zenaffa armor, commanding it. It obeyed her by ensnaring the elf's mouth and pulled her across the wall. Claire grabbed Sylphiel and pulled her along too, so the three were covered under a magnolia tree.

Though Memphis couldn't speak, the question in her eyes was clear.

"My own design. Didn't you wonder why Sailoon has so much perfect Zenaffa running around?" Claire said, and then peppered it with a lie. "Listen to me. The devils plan to invade the Kataart Mountains to free Lei Magnus. Rangort is desperate to prevent this and thinks that putting me back there will stop the unsealing. However, I want to stick with plan A : my rebirth. Unfortunately Rangort's been quite insane lately. Surely you've seen the damage Vrabazard has done in the south?"

As she spoke, she pulled at the affinity elves held to the gods, compelling Memphis to oblige her. By the last sentence, she tasted enough goodwill to order the armor to relase her.

"You are really Aqualord Ragradia? But ... how?" Memphis asked in a shivering voice. Her proud act held no water here.

"Lina Inverse had a hand in it, as did Rangort before the pillar tampered with hir rational thought. Really, I'm in a bit of bind here. E's not as bad off as Vrabazard and Valwin cause e was in hell," she said, making sure to pour expression in her face : distraught, a little desperate, a little childish, with an undertone of commanding. It wasn't easy when said face rather showed fear.

Memphis caved. "Right ... off course I'll help you, Aqualord, as you wish ... shouldn't we explain this to uncle and the others, though?"

If Claire could really hijack Lyos's power and work through that to compel the dragons, she would do so with hesitation. Since she didn't, she lied again.

"It wouldn't do for the elves and dragons to doubt their leader now. Rangort's plans to stop Lei Magnus aren't wrong. It is better if I go to Rangort and help hir regain their sanity."

By now, Sylphiel gave her odd looks. There probably were discrepancies between what she's heard from Filia and Xelloss, but that didn't matter now.

"I'd be honored to aid you, Aqualord Ragradia!" Memphis said as she bowed. "Just tell me what to do."

"I'll leave that to Sylphiel," Ragradia said. "She's our expert in smuggling things out of highly guarded locations into holy trees."

"Ehm ... miss Claire, are you sure we shouldn't do something like helping the Sailoon army?"

"They don't need you," Claire said. "Your Drag Slave should not be used in the city. Now help me."

"We should listen to the Aqualord, Sylphy," Memphis said. "It's the right thing to do!"

Sylphiel's plan for escaping was simple. Claire flying was out of the question, she stood out too much. She instead asked Claire to turn into a form as young as possible, so Claire turned into a baby. Like this, Sylphiel placed her in a bag of holy herbs from the temple garden. Under the excuse of having fetched some very useful holy herbs, she bypassed a squad of elves. Memphis met her in their sight, feigning happiness that Sylphiel had found the food she asked for. Judging by the emotions Claire tasted, the other elves bought the little scene.

Said elves moved into attack the palace directly, striking a decisive blow against the Sailoon forces.

Memphis didn't join them, but separated from Sylphiel to go ahead to the wall to prepare their exit point.

While Sylphiel skipped through the streets, she passed by shop owners sweeping, little groups of people clustered together to discuss the dragons that had been seen near the walls, children enacting heroic battles against the invading monsters. There were no explosions or aerial battles.

The way these elves and dragons operated had a quietness to it that surprised Claire. Scattered information revealed the operating name to be a certain Ospirias, no one she remembered.

Sailoon soldiers died right now, and the first dragon went down. There was an explosion, but the population of Sailoon rarely was surprised by those anymore.

Lyos was caught by a combination of sleep spells and teleported away from the city.

Filia was imprisoned on a noticeable area near the palace, they hoped to draw Val out.

Xelloss was gone; either shielded by Val or teleported away already.

"We'll be at the restaurant soon," Sylphiel said. "Don't worry."

The kind of thing said with confidence and kindness, and unfounded. It worked nothing for a creature that saw everything go awry.

Sylphiel slipped in through the backdoor of the restaurant, where Dirgear sweeped the floor.

"Excuse me, where is miss Luna?" Sylphiel asked.

"Backroom, changing," Dirgear said. "What's going on?

Claire grow a little taller, crawled out of the back and turned into an adult. Ignoring Dirgear, she ran for the room.

Luna just finished lacing her boots, her aura thick with building bloodlust.

"Do not fight them," Claire said. "They are swifter with their sleep spells and obscuring magic than you are. Lyos has already been subdued."

"Fight who?" Dirgear asked, who had followed her.

"The dragons are invading," Sylphiel said, voice breaking.

Luna shoved them all aside, marched to the kitchen and grabbed a knife.

"Luna, _don't_. They have half a dozen variations of the sleep spell, they fired all of them at Lyos simultaneously. He's knocked out. You won't fare better," Claire said.

"He can't see the astral plane," Luna said. She set down the knife in favor of another, then called to the chef, "Hey, Rardos, I want to have this one."

The chef leaned through the door, nodding quickly, "Whatever you want, miss Luna."

He disappeared just as quickly, Claire couldn't tell whether he feared the invasion or Luna.

"Filia healed you, didn't she? Your body naturally needs sleep. You've been skipping on it for weeks now. Do not let them cast on you," Ragradia said. "It will not be the first time clever magic outmatched your brute power. This time, Filia won't be around to drag you back from hell. They just caught her too."

Luna finally looked at her.

For the shortest moment, she was a human woman. Worry for another and doubt about sparked, mingling with that quiet rage of her. Within one astral breath, the conflict died. Using her own flow, Luna erased whatever unpleasant emotion brewed. Only the rage she was so familiar with remained, like a thing precious to her.

"Well. Wouldn't want that again." She slid the knife in her boot. "Spot, run home and get my bags."

**· · · · · · ·**

Sylphiel, a packed Dirgear, a bagged Claire and Luna appeared on an ally near the city's outer point, which lay closest to the forest and hills. No one was allowed to leave the city or even enclose the walls,

Claire called out to Memphis's Zenaffa armor, which responded already within the barrier's tower.

The fusion shield over Sailoon was upheld by duos of sorcerer friends from Sailoon, using directions from Claire to ensure the shield did certain things. The two here lived nearby and were on a shift with three other duos.

A cluster of Zenaffa wielding elves stood outside the building, while inside small explosions wrecked the building.

"Who allowed Memphis to take care of this strategic core?"

"I don't know, the guys from the palace say they're happy she didn't join them. I bet they suggested she come here."

"Should we help those humans? Lord Azonge told us to minimize casualties."

"And go in a small space with Memphis on rampage?"

"Good point."

Sylphiel decided on the technique, which involved copious abuse of her innocent air, the same kind of social power that had no one figure out she was one of the few who could have taken Flagoon's sword from the shrine. It worked because innocence was more of an aesthetic than a ethical indicator, the power of human imagination at full swing.

"Oh, excuse me," Sylphiel said as she skipped up. "I had agreed with Memphy to meet at my friend's restaurant to prepare her a special meal. I have these special herbs and everything, yet she didn't show up!"

The squad lead sighed. "She went ahead of us, Sylphiel. If you could get her away from there it'd be appreciated a lot."

The entire group nodded along.

"Who are those two?" the squad leader asked.

"Mister Dirgear helped track down miss Memphis by scent, and miss Lumina came along in hopes of learning whether there truly is an invasion."

Luna took this as her cue to engage the elves in conversation. Though she couldn't poke them astrally, her holy flow had an indirect effect on their mood to her. With their backs turned, they didn't notice that Dirgear followed Sylphiel into the building.

Inside, the Sailoon soldiers and the two wielders of the vessels idled in the hallway while Memphis wrecked everything upstairs, bravely frighting furniture.

"Hello, we have been told you were on our side?" the secretary asked.

Sylphiel opened the bag, allowing Claire to climb out.

"Memphy, we're here!" Sylphiel called.

The elf and armor bounded down the stairs immediately. "Good, I was getting bored. I got the vessels!"

"What's going on anyway?" the secretary asked. "She first beats us up, but then won't hand over the vessels to the enemy army."

"Stop asking," Luna said, astrally dragging the woman's confidence down. Claire watched it for a second, curious whether she herself could do something like that. Her heart still beat, her focus was still a little off.

Memphis produced the two vessels from their grip on the back of her armor. She handed the more elegant one to Sylphiel, while giving the black one a scornful look. "No matter how often I see this, Xelloss's art sense will be forever unholy."

Claire didn't care, but Memphis had to consider her a friendly god if she wanted her to keep quiet once she couldn't compel her anymore. She lied again, "I agree, next time I'll hire someone else."

Luna stepped in and said, "Hey, elf. They noticed the racket stopped. Go stop them from coming in."

Memphis nodded quickly and darted out the building, shouting to the other dragons about having accidentally broken the vessels but secured the post. This harvested a collective groan about who allowed Memphis a Zenaffa armor and unquestioning belief in her statement. No one came to check for the truth, to the satisfaction of Claire and the offense of Memphis.

"What now?" Dirgear asked.

Sylphiel tiptoed back to the door and called, "Memphy, me and my friends are going to stay for a bit. You injured people!"

More collective groans happened, as well as a shout for whether they should call in a dragon healer.

"No thank you, I can handle it. You have to understand the people are a little spooked. You are invading after all."

Claire tugged at the secretary's cloak. "Tear your clothes a bit, and go outside ten minutes from now. The others must go through the wall's corridors. You will tell the dragons outside Sylphiel and the others went to find other injured."

It'd be left in the air whether the dragons believed it, but if they met up with Xelloss before they smelled something fishy, it wouldn't matter. He could teleport them away.

They couldn't walk out the gate, but Sylphiel knew an earth spell normally used for gardening. Starting from a tunnel, she dug them a way into the forest outside.

Circling around dangerous zones, they made their way to Rygoon. Claire used her wings, Sylphiel a Ray Wing spell and Luna just picked up Dirgear with projected claws and ran along.

For a daring escape, this was a welcome bore. The ridiculous responses of her body faded down, clearing room for thought. She scryed for how Sailoon's defense held up, which was impressive despite the dragons having the advantage of surprise and more experienced Zenaffa wielders and most Sailoon soldiers being off duty at the time of invasion. The dragons took care to avoid injuring citizens. Two more angels had appeared, searching for her and for Val.

Once near Rygoon, Sylphiel's face lit up. "I believe Xelloss is here already. The tree isn't happy with them, but they're okay so far."

A short trip through the roots later, Sylphiel was proved correct. Xelloss and Val, but no Filia, were in the makeshift living room. Xelloss had helped himself to the tea storage, smiling as happy as ever but feeling less so. On the astral plane, his true form bore scars of holy power, but she couldn't tell how severe — he lingered on the edge of Val's hollow. The boy himself set in a corner, face hidden in his arms.

When Xelloss saw Luna, he shifted to the farthest end of the room, cup still in hand. "Hello, miss Luna. How wonderful to see you again. Did you ever find your sense of adventure?"

"Guess. Your mommy's chasing my tail," Luna said, just as she grabbed him with her tendrils. She forced him down on a chair, leaning on his shoulders. Her fingers dug in. "Talk, little clown."

Xelloss leaned back his head, one eye open. "Uhm ... it would be much appreciated if you left me intact. I took a blow from a god the other day. I'll be happy to talk once we are on a safer location."

"Hmm." She let go of him and plopped herself down in the nearest chair. "Now what, oh Aqualord? Take your time figuring it out, I'm happy to stay here for a loooong time. T´s comfy. Sylphid, do you happen to have a good bottle of wine?"

"Is mom not with you?" Val asked.

Luna stopped smirking. "Yes, Xelloss. Do explain the attendance record."

"I first figured that miss Luna and miss Filia would be near one another, then I saw she´d been captured and figured miss Luna would get her." Xelloss scratched cheek, confused. "I went for Val because him freaking out would be a bigger problem than you breaking her out, miss Luna."

"I don't hang with Frilly anymore. She objects to my dog," Luna said with a nod at Dirgear.

"Oh my, how unpleasant for you," he said with the kind of smile that wished to have seen it.

"I'll bet you it'll taste even better if that brat makes a move again," Luna said.

Claire stepped to Luna before she could project the blade she pointed at the boy. "Don't, please," she whispered.

Luna stood up and shoved her away. "He can't be trusted. He stole part of my power," Luna told Xelloss.

There, both of Xelloss's eyes opened. "Oh my. We can't have that, now can we?"

Xelloss shifted to Val locked a hand around his neck, lifting him up. Val forced his wings out and tried to age, but Xelloss just clacked his tongue and said, "I wouldn't do that if I had a windpipe. You'd just choke yourself by growing."

Val stopped, but didn't withdraw his wings. His wide eyes settled on Claire, then Sylphiel, pleading for help.

"Miss Claire, do you have anything to say?"

"Don't bother," Luna said, her voice cutting. "He has both Filia and her wrapped around his claws. Filia sees a perfect little angel and I don't know about her, but she's not talking _for_ me."

"Please put him down," Sylphiel said. "Maybe it was just a misunderstanding?"

"Think what makes you happy," Luna said. "Xelloss, you gonna do something about it?"

"He may still contain knowledge that we need. Unless he clearly has become Valgarv, I may not kill him. Hmm, let's see ..."

He threw Val against the wall and knelt before him. "Val, I'm not going back to save your mother. She'll be taken to Kataart by the golden dragons, possibly to be on trial and executed. That is, if Lei Magnus Shabranigdu is not released first, in which case the devil armies will likely kill her. I'm taking you somewhere you can't help her."

Val roared as exploded with black feathers and threw himself at Xelloss, expanding that dreadful hollow. A shockwave threw Claire, Dirgear and Sylphiel back; her senses blacked out yet again. It took a few seconds before she willed her body to look with her organic eyes.

Xelloss had twisted a speed-grown Val's arm behind his back, the wings hooked on his staff. Leaning his knee on his neck, he said, "Well, miss Luna, I can only ascertain his appears to be Val Ul Copt all the way. Valgarv was a narcissist, they do not really love others. This one doesn't taste like that."

"Let me go!" Val screamed. "I have to get mom!"

Xelloss just leaned his foot on his back and pushed him halfway into the ground. Claire's instinct kicked into overdrive, only to be blocked by the fact she couldn't _do_ anything. Not against Xelloss, even in this state. Not against Luna.

"We will come for him later so my lord can investigate him. Until then, we'd appreciate it if you kept an eye on him, miss Luna," Xelloss said.

"I can, but will I? Your bitch of a mother still hasn't paid me," Luna said.

"Eh ... no. Let me rephrase it. You can only be useful to us or a liability, but let's dwell on more positive aspects : hide in his hollow and any magical tracking of the dragons cannot find you."

Luna's mouth drew in a thin line. "I'll kill him if he tries anything else, but alright. It's just a guess but those dragons may just notice this giant holy stick in the mud."

"Are you serious?" Sylphiel asked. "Are you really not going after miss Filia and mister Lyos?"

"I'm supposed to not be seen, so why don't you take care of that?" Xelloss pointed to the north. "Simply tell miss Memphis you'd like to spend more time with her."

In a time of need, humans look to their gods, only to receive a divine shrug. Luna did it literary, Claire just shook her head.

Sylphiel sighed. "Alright, I will see what I can do."

"Good. Now, I have an acquaintance in Ruvinagald," Xelloss said. "Allow me to teleport the rest of you there."

Xelloss stepped off of Val, borrowed holy magic from Luna. A shaky transportation brought them to a cityside hill, not without further damage to him. He collapsed on arrival.

Claire let herself drop face first into the grass, the anxiety fleeting off of her in waves. The dense trees above provided solid shadow while the city basked in sunlight. The shiny day felt relevant again, but just for a short second.

A wave of Val's pain hit her senses and she scrambled up. He wasn't hurt too bad, but his wings bled. She couldn't heal with her own power, but she could cast shamanistic magic like this. The lush lands provided plenty for Resurrection.

While Claire healed Val, Luna filled the time with questioning Xelloss on everything he hadn't explicitly been forbidden to say. Claire listened, which didn't help her mood.

"So her grand plan fell on its nose," Luna said at the end of it. "Nice."

"What now, Luna?" Dirgear asked.

"I'm going to run to Rangort and tell'em everything, that's why I didn't escape Sailoon." She slapped him on the head. "It's not like I'd want to stay low ... at least until I can whip Lina's ass for getting me involved."

"That's the spirit, miss Luna!" Xelloss said, clapping.

"Yay. I've never had the spirit before. How novel of me." She grabbed his cloak, jerking him back on his feet. Charging her hand with holy power, she pried off his silver clasps. Oozing like a Zenaffa armor, the silver revealed but did not release the red shard. It did mingle with the clasps of Xelloss, copying them.

"Ehm ... that's a bit rude, miss Luna," Xelloss said, leaning on her shoulder.

"You're welcome." Luna ended up with an triple clasp binding her sleeveless shirt at the top, the squared talisman at its center. She let go of Xelloss, who dusted off as the clasps reformed.

"I'm done, Val," Claire said as she finished. "Let's take our child forms."

"Oh, yeah ... thank you," he said, smiling at last, but only for a little. "Hey, you have to learn me about the flow allowing thing, like with fusion. I think I'm blocking stuff somehow."

She nodded. "If you can teach me a few things as well."

"There's nothing to tell," Val said in a strange monotone.

Xelloss cast him a skeptical look and a cold smile. "There isn't, is there?"

Val returned his glare and brought a hint of bloodlust in the air. Claire didn't disagree, she wasn't that comfortable with Xelloss anymore. Still, for Val's sake she tugged at his wing to distract him.

"I'll be on my way," Xelloss said, chill already replaced by cheer. He pulled a piece of paper from his satchel. "Go to this address. A good acquaintance of mine lives there, he will welcome you."

Luna snatched the paper. "You gotta be kidding me."

"You know him?"

"Yeah, he sent me a request to help detain my little sister a few years back." She crumpled the paper. "This'll be easy."

**· · · · · · ·**

The Freion home had blue doors and windowsills filled with geraniums, which attracted a few sprites. Luna knocked thrice on the door, and far away, Ragradia soared between the clouds.

Despite the physical distance, her link to Lyos thrived and poured his anxiety into her. Perhaps he was the reason why she felt this much fear. Was that even better than it it being the result of her small life?

Val tugged at her hair. "Hey, are you okay?"

She forced a smile and said, "Only as well as you are with some other mind taking over."

"I don't have another mind taking me over," he said. "You're talking weird, so you're really not okay."

Luna tapped her feet, and knocked another three times.

"Maybe he's not home," Dirgear said.

"No, I see him."

"I bet he's tired," Val said. "Hey, Claire, am I right?"

She focused on the house's inside — table filled with case files, a room full of court outfits, a hidden compartment below the cellar filled with illegal tools, and somewhere in a messy bed, a blurry human. With a little magic, she poked him away, lest Luna do it.

"Just a minute," Wizer soon called.

Two minutes later, a wrinkly human with graying frizzy hair opened the door. Judging by the bathrobe and drooping smile, he was not yet caffeinated.

"Hello, Scruffy," Luna said with a tilted head and wide smirk. "I'm Luna Inverse. Your buddy Xelloss sent us. Let us in."

"Huhurgh? Oh! Off course, come in! Friends of Xelloss are always welcome here," he yawned.

Luna picked up both Val and Claire and pushed past Wizer. Dirgear slammed the door behind them.

Seeing it with physical eyes brought a different picture : decorated in warm colors and rich with the scent of coffee. Cozy and neat, despite occasional spots of work related chaos. She liked it, to her surprise.

Luna dropped herself on the biggest couch, one kid on either side. Arms spread across the back, she demanded, "Tell me how often dragons cross this city."

"Uh ... we've seen two goldens last month," Wizer said, rubbing his head.

"Any golden haired humans in white clothing and aristocratic demeanor?"

"I did see a few of those at court," he muttered. "What's going on?"

"The dragons are preparing for war and we're not on their side," Luna said. Though her tone never changed, she already lost patience. Her tendrils snaked across the astral plane towards the man, ready to shock him into swifter obedience. "I want more information."

"Huh?"

Luna lashed out, but Claire's instincts moved just as quickly. Though her power meant nothing compared to Luna, Claire could redirect the flow. For just a meter or so, this distorted Luna's sense of location.

Luna's human body never moved, but the malformed skull on the astral plane did. Hollow eyes peered down at Claire, and cold fury hissed up. This was what had become of her progenitor. She dropped off the couch, taking a step with each loud heartbeat. What ought to be her sibling force terrified her now.

But still, she _had_ to speak. "Why don't we wait until he's awake? We can talk much better then."

"I can wake him quite fine," Luna said. "Trust me, I did this many times."

Still on the couch, Val expanded his hollowness, careful not to disturb Claire's effect.

Luna's lips twitched a little, but she didn't push her power further. "Nuisances. Behave or I'll pay attention to you."

Oblivious Wizer yawned. "I need a cup of coffee."

He needed three coffees, a shower (Claire was pretty sure the model was a cheap copy of Jillas' original design) and regular day clothes. When he reemerged, he wasn't scruffy anymore.

Luna helped herself to the kitchen's food storage, Dirgear followed her lead. Val didn't. Right now he was just Filia's son, Filia insisted it was impolite to eat other people's food without being offered; Xelloss had a great deal to do with that.

"Ahem," Wizer said as he sat down at his table. "I believe you owe me an explanation, miss Inverse. You may start with who your company is."

"The big guy is Spot, my dog. Those two, the kids of Xelloss and Filia," Luna said. "We're on the run from some obnoxious dragons with bad designs."

Wizer put a hand on his chin, as typical to detectives that must've inspired him.

"Xelloss has told me of a Filia the golden dragon, but I was under the impression that their relation was more antagonistic," he said. "The phrase was stinky dragon ex-priestess was dropped a lot."

"True. They are _very_ devoted to their no budget sequel to the War of the Devils' Descent,"Luna said, nodding gravely. "It was only a matter of time before it was paid for with life."

"Aha ... I see," Wizer stated, looking at Val and Claire with new and wrong understanding.

Claire clapped her hands together, looking happy and squinting as she flared her wings out. "It's normally a secret, but since you're a friend you can know about us!"

"I see the resemblance to Xelloss with her. But the quiet one doesn't really strike me as a child of him."

Val pouted. "Luna's mean. I'm just mom's son, not Evil Wizard Cone Person Thingy's."

Luna broadly gestured at Val. "The brat takes after mommy. Broody, tormented, chronic refusal to admit Xelloss is part of the screwed family. Also very moral, unless he wants to mutilate."

"I see," Wizer said. "Will that be a problem?"

"You don't see!" Val cried. "Claire, explain him!"

Claire shrugged before raising a finger. "Symbolically, it can be framed as Luna did, but if we must frame it in mortal ways, greater accuracy stems from Filia and Xelloss both as father role and Lina Inverse as mother."

Val slammed his forehead on the table, groaning. "You're all horrible."

"Does this have anything to do with why they are pursued by dragons and elves?" Wizer asked.

Luna chuckled. "You're sharp. No wonder you resonate with the clown. Yeah. Him cause he's a monster, her cause she's a little piece of their god. They're gonna be stupid and bring them right under Crabtan's nose."

"If it is something so deep, you can't stay here. The Alliance of Coastal States has already partially allied with the dragons. But if I may recommend a place to hide : Zoana."

"Why Zoana?" Dirgear asked.

"Nobody likes Zoana," Wizer said with a grin. "In fact, just the other week they were kicked out of the Alliance after the queen brought her devil deity to a summit."

"Worth checking out," Luna said.

"This is stupid," Val said. "Claire, we should do something to help my mom and your brother. I don't think Sylphiel can do it alone."

At those words, and the spike of emotions, Luna again almost felt something.

The way Luna cut off her own emotions ... the psychological structure of it existed, sure, but the blossoming of it kept nipped in the bud by the flow cooling off any negative emotion. It remained small, manageable and under control. Fear couldn't grow to panic, because nothing but the smallest hint of warning thrived.

Ragradia envied her.

"No, we're not going to take such a risk," Claire said, feeling regret and trying to cut it. It didn't have to be part of her, it'd get in the way when she was a god again.

**· · · · · · ·**

They spent a day with Wizer, who prepared their route. He and Xelloss kept tabs, and Wizer had soon learned to benefits of having a devil owe him. Claire bet that Xelloss for his part just did it for fun.

While Wizer sorted through files and routes, Luna and Claire stayed in the astral shadow of Val. Sometimes Claire approached the edge, checking for Rangort's prying power, and yes, angels were on the lookout. The hollow neutralized their outward flow well, but the inward flow worked. She still lived as Lyos too.

It didn't really make sense that Val's astral hollow could be visually hidden by covering it below a bigger astral body, like that of Xelloss, yet also serve to disrupt flow sight when he expanded it. It was so convenient ... for him. She couldn't pry into him to discover what it was.

Fusion magic had an effect on whatever it was, she was sure. Val reverted to standard mode after being pulled under the shield of Xelloss and Filia. If only she had some vessels available. Too bad _if only_ didn't get her anywhere.

Lyos shared the sentiment for a very different reason. He'd like to escape rather like right now, thank you very much, but a combination of sleep and muscle fatigue spells coupled with a Zenaffa armor kept him firmly in place. At first they stuffed him in a makeshift prison cave, but after a day or so, they brought him into her old temple. His response to the structure was ... something.

She held memories of the birth of the world, there was no power in mere rock that could impress her. Lyos on the other hand had an all too human response, Claire no longer had choices in what to feel.

Ragradia had seen and tasted the emotions of thousands of mortals beholding the (for her) average stone masses. Sanctified awe had been closest to a favored taste back then, but now ... experiencing it personally was ...

She had never learned the kind of words to describe this kind of thing. Abstract concepts are vital for a mind give structure to formless experiences, up to the point that people without words for left and right could not orient as well. She didn't know whether she wanted to flee or to revel in it, but at last she understood why humans had a purpose for poetry.

Lyos laughed at that, saying he didn't need to tell anyone, except maybe her?

One of his guards distracted him by asking about the laughter, and Claire didn't pursue the topic.

The dragons weren't certain why the angels had told them to arrest Filia and Lyos. They were after Val and there was mention of a blue haired girl who they thought was another Ancient Dragon; the angels must have decided to keep her identity a secret for now. Devils would not be interested in an Ancient Dragon, unlike a god particle.

She didn't dare to look for too long and hid within Val's hollow for a few hours. Most of that time she spent trying to not panic over the lack of sight, and building noodle palaces with Val in Wizer's kitchen.

**· · · · · · ·**

The next time she looked, Filia and Lyos were before separate councils. Filia had opted for saying nothing useful at all and chewing everyone's ears off with rants. Lyos tried to convince the dragons that a devil invasion was on its way, which wasn't easy without citing a source.

**· · · · · · ·**

By evening, she looked again. Lyos had been bound with the magical techniques meant to enslave Luna Inverse, and a conflict had risen between the wind dragon leader and her own followers over the details. Claire tried to feel pride over the fact her old dragons still had standards, but couldn't manage. Why did she develop fear yet not this more positive emotion?

**· · · · · · ·**

Filia tried escaping the Zenaffa armor she'd been sealed within next time Claire peaked out; she failed. Out of some vague sense of curiosity, Claire told Luna about this.

Luna just shrugged and cut away her concern, rendering herself back into her uncomplicated status quo. This time, Claire caught the emotion before it dispersed, a simple selfish kind of concern, but unpleasant either way. Had she not seen Luna as a grown woman before her, she would have mistaken it for a child's.

**· · · · · · ·**

The next morning, she asked Val to lessen his hollow again ... oh, would you look at that. Milgazia and Azonge _had_ paid attention. Well. Good. They had readied their troops in response to Lyos's warning, which came in handy because the devil invasion on Kataart had begun.

Claire rolled some spaghetti on a spoon and calmly informed the others. Val and Wizer produced so much miasma, Claire lost her appetite. Not that she wasn't worried for the situation, but it existed more on a cognitive level. She herself wasn't in immediate danger nor could she do anything. For that much at least, her mind was in her preferred state.

"Is mom okay?"

"There's a magic sucking device near them and Zenaffa armors, but don't worry. Sylphiel finally got enough freedom of movement to do something, and Memphis is about to realize she wants to help her. She's going to get Lyos's Banisher first, then she'll join Sylphiel."

"Can't you give more details?" Val pleaded.

**· · · · · · ·**

Sylpiel peeked through the small window atop the cell.

"Mister Lyos?" she asked.

"Come on, Sylphy. Quick!" Ah, Memphis. Claire told Lyos to stand back, just before Memphis hurled his sword in. He caught it by the hilt and waited until Memphis had pried open the door of his cell.

He geared up to make heroic exit and smite some devils, but Memphis beat him to it. She stepped in, hands on hips and demanded, "I want to know what's up. I met someone who was close to convincing me she was Ragradia. Off course I'm not so easily led along, but you can confirm it, right? You're the Aqualord's Knight after all."

"Yes, but try to keep this to yourself. If the devils know she exists, they'll hunt her down," Lyos said.

"I knew my senses were accurate," Memphis said with a satisfied nod. "But I don't agree with not telling at least uncle Milgazia. He can help better than anyone!"

**· · · · · · ·**

Claire stopped telling the others what happened, a queasy feeling settling in her stomach.

Perhaps they _should_ have.

Following Memphis's trail to the past, she pulled visions into her own mind and learned.

The others dragons were ready to arrest Filia without even being sure their god had decreed it; Milgazia didn't want to. Azonge ... didn't want to either?

A lot of things happened in the world she had never bothered paying attention to. When had Azonge changed his mind? How?

If they had told Filia and Milgazia years ago, if they had trained them to lock out gods from their mind — she now knew Luna and Filia could do it, albeit with flawed technique, she could have taught Luna to use her own power, or steal it from Rangort — if they'd known.

They might have had their army now.

If she had ...

The invasion was happening too early. Everything was off mark. Rangort was blind and deluded. Valwin and Vrabazard mad. Dalphin in possession of their talisman.

Lina Inverse was still not home.

If they had tested whether Filia and Milgazia could be trusted with the touchy information, maybe not even all, but more, just how different would it have gone?

They might have had a soul jar. They might have done the reincarnation with Milgazia and others around to witness it, and no one would have stolen the talisman.

They might have trained Filia in teleportation, allowing her to bring them all over the globe. Hiding and acting out roles wouldn't be a big problem if they could be on the run instead. Teleportation was the ultimate escape.

They might have given Milgazia knowledge and a method to avert the war movements, away from Lei Magnus entirely.

Blind trust is foolish, but that only meant they had to figure out whom could be trusted. They hadn't considered any mortals worthy to be moving players, rather then merely strong pawns.

Pride was hers after all. Not the feeling in particular, but the cognitive side of it dominated her and the others on her team. Before she left, Lina Inverse had put together a plan that involved telling Filia and Milgazia, and eventually even Luna. With Lina gone, why exactly had it sounded like a good idea to treat future allies as pawns?

Because hey, Zelas and Ragradia were deities so much older and larger than them. That had always sounded like logic.

"The hell is happening there? Your emotions are sick, girl," Luna said.

"I just figured out I'm never going to be a deity again," Claire whispered.

**· · · · · · ·**


	22. Xelloss's Paradigms

**· · · · · · ·**

Xelloss was bored, on the backburner because of injury and  in need of a victim. He found one high in the sky of Kataart.

Buried in a thick wingchair, Grau fiddled with his thumbs. He bathed in the sunrise, so high the clouds drifted by him. Xelloss could have mistaken him for one to enjoy the scenery to go out of his way so much, but up close Grau only tasted of sour emotions.

Quite the invitation for Xelloss, so he he joined his fellow priest by leaning over the backside of the chair in the most mismatched, nonchalant way possible. For extra spice, he put on a voice he's knew was a most grating kind of carefree.

"What are you so anxious about?"

"Hggnnh."

"You have fiddled for five hours, mister Graush—Oops, almost mispronounced your name. Mister Grau, you can't help what you were, but you can help what you become. Try something more creative."

Grau sneered at the last word and pulled his robes higher around him, a gesture treacherously human. Unlike his lord, he didn't forget to add sound to the fabric. Exactly that irked Xelloss, because why not go further?

"If you can bother to project a chair all the way out here, you could choose to do something more conductive to our mission?"

"It gives me focus," Grau grumbled. "I have no orders to fulfill, so that is all I can do."

That kind of thinking was never enough for Xelloss. With a location like this, they had a good view of the war.

The first wave of devils had been sent in the break of dusk to the expected effects : annihilation merely by the guards. The allegiance of dragons from all four corners of the globe, coupled with forced recruits of the Sailoon Zenaffa wielders and fusion vessels on top proved more than bargained for. Teleporters had figured out the devious trick of grabbing legions and teleporting them near a firing team. The injury sustained from teleportation slowed them down, they never had a chance to retaliate.

Off course, now the devils knew what to expect. This was Metaliomese for Xelloss being bored. He didn't hate battle or the miasma to produced, but it wasn't exactly his hobby. Give him a harvesting game in society any day over this stale procedure.

There wasn't a real game in this either. The gods blinded and unable to interfere, the seal weakened due to the distorting pillar ... busting Lei Shabranigdu out was a safe, casual move. Xelloss would have preferred babysitting duties over this, as Deep Sea Dalphin did right now. After turning on the pillar, they had found three reincarnated pieces of Shabranigdu; one the new Knight of Shabranigdu, useless to them in the form of baby, and two young hosts.

Dalphin had concluded that the first ray must have faltered because of a failed incubation, set on the summoning coupled with the Knight's inherent instability. If a fetus died or was dying in the womb, the soul drifted into Megiddo without ever entering hell since there was no spirit to ground it. With this in mind, Dalphin believed she could solve their new problem : the other hosts were fetuses too and could not musted the hatred to awaken Shabranigdu. Under her breath, Dalphin had expressed the hope Lei Shabranigdu could do something.

In short, the world destruction plot was officially activated. What a drag.

No, beyond a drag. Having met the alleged Sage of Siephied and learning what she truly was only made it clearer that when it came to the whims of the Lord of Nightmares, they stuck for a bit. Like, a few thousands or so. Maybe more.

The Beast Monarch was incapable of realizing who Leyunso really was. How many ideas had Leyunso planted in his liege before ensuring she could not believe this or that? "Create a devil who won't lie" might just stem from that time. The implications were massive. Xelloss itched to ash her whether she'd chosen his lord for a reason, or whether it all was an accident. Not that it mattered in the grand game. The Lord of Nightmares had made her intent clear. More so than ever, Xelloss knew the world had to change.

Leyunso's state appeared to be a curse on first sight, but it could be turned to power. She could plant disbelief, Xelloss would give to play with such a thing. His usual methods ... perhaps they were a bit lacking. Right now, being able to make the devils disbelieve freeing Lei Magnus was the right move would solve so much.

Though, maybe he could plant a seed of distrust?

In the name of experimentation, he leaned further over Grau's chair and said, "Mister Grau, don't you think it is very strange that when a devil is sealed in a human soul, they can take over this soul to the point of all their personality, power and appearance returning to former glory, yet they will inevitably be stuck with a survival instinct?"

Grau's sting of discomfort was the only reply.

"After all, that was the price Garv paid for resurfacing. I understand why lord Shabranigdu will not do it with his human hosts, but I am very curious why it works this way."

"It's just a complication of the way gods and the flow work. Off course they would rig it that way!" Grau shouted.

Xelloss opened both of his eyes, but only briefly. That was a more aggressive response than expected from the whimpering little fool.

"Off course, off course. I wonder why Garv played along, then," Xelloss said slowly. "Why could he at all? In fact, how come the parts divided by Siephied are still pure and monotone, yet the devils created by Shabranigdu so ... diverse?"

"You know as well as anyone that we need to differentiate to solidify the foul fact we must exist to end the world."

"Ah, yes. He who fights a monster may become one, and lo, the abyss stares back." Xelloss rapped his fingers on Grau's miter. He waited a few seconds, allowing no sound but the wind around. He didn't breathe, didn't let his projection make noise. Then he spoke slow and deliberated, "What if Her dream is biased towards existence?"

"That is not for us to question! You should work that serpent tongue on our enemies," Grau snapped.

The temptation to say _but that's what I'm doing right now_ tickled behind his lips.

Xelloss chose wiser words, "Oh, you think this is _work_? I'm merely killing the time with polite conversation and here I am, accused of foul play against my own allies. So unfair. Then again, you _are_ lord Dynast's servant."

"Don't play that game! You have no right to infer anything about ... about ... _Her_."

Grau tasted of doubt, affront, worry, embarrassment : all whipping on the icecream. "I didn't infer anything, mister Grau. Have I said a single question about the reason we fight? It is you who takes my perfectly legitimate theory about the gods trying to make us doubt our purpose all the wrong ways."

"You ... you were talking about Garv, and ... "

"About Garv mingled with mortal souls. And?"

"I heard you mention _Her_ dream!"

"And not Her nightmare that is this world. My, did you think I was?"

"I ... ehm ... just ... off course I know what you meant all along! Don't be ridiculous. I was just messing with you. You're not the only one who can do that!"

And the fox on the plains didn't see the wolf anymore, though the wolf made a splash catching two fish at once and prancing over the ice to showcase it.

Now he needed something else to kill time.

**· · · · · · ·**

He should have thought of betting on which dragons die first earlier. Never play cards with Grau again.

**· · · · · · ·**

The reports of the enemy range flooded in just when the sun has risen entirely above the horizon on the vintage point of Xelloss and Grau. Midranked devils brought the reports and Xelloss did his best to listen, if only because the Beast Monarch had told him to. Even as he was damaged from the battle with Rangort, he doubted he'd die at dragon claws.

They needed help getting rid of the fusion magic vessels first. Being one of the creators of the vessels, Xelloss could trace each of them by their magical signature. As long as it wasn't too obvious he was familiar with them, the vessels should pose no problem.

The three retainers themselves had begun carving through the barrier around the mountain sealing Lei Magnus. Xelloss, Grau and Rashat were to keep the flies off.

"Well then, mister Grau, let's head in."

The first worthwhile enemy to catch his eye was a group of five Zenaffa armored elves down a valley. He descended and projected. Just as they noticed him, he smiled and set the air around them on fire. Only one of themselves got himself encased by the Zenaffa's giant form quick enough to survive, but even a pocket of air inside would run out eventually. Xelloss kept the blue inferno on, dodged all the laserbreath and blocked its attempts to grab him physically.

It took about five minutes before this one died.

A flock of wind dragons approached close across the mountains, he pointed his finger and blew them up. Dull. He went to find some more Zenaffa wielders to play with.

Mindless mass slaughter wasn't Xelloss's preference. You never knew what kind of useful, fun people you killed. Granted, with dragons this risk was low. Still, who knew how many more like Filia were tucked away? On the other hand, Milgazia needed to die.

He killed another legion, yawned and sat back in midair. "Want to take over, mister Grau? Surely you can deal with the next legion."

Without complaint but much anxiety, the little pope went ahead, flanked by a swarm of lesser demons. Pffft. With a quarter of Xelloss's power, Grau was still a threat to the dragons, but his insecurity hindered him.

Boring, boring, boring.

He decided kill more slowly, just to drive away time. Pinch here, pinch there, piece some necks, snap some spines, and for diversity, manually hop around a little and whack things with his staff or poke them with a magical charge. Sometimes he'd let them nearly hit him. The real game was guessing what legion they belonged to.

He ignored the earth dragons for the most part; he had a hunch reconciliation with Rangort was on the schedule. Somehow. To cover for this, he placed particular focus on the fire dragons. If anyone asked, he could pass that off as personal distaste.

While fighting, he caught traces of dragon settlements within the mountains, but ignored them. Killing civilians was not in his orders, not useful, not a challenge, and might cause him to run into Lyos and Filia. He didn't doubt Sylphiel would get them out, righteous little priestess that she was, but Lyos and Filia had a heroic streak that might make them stay. Hmm ... Claire would probably persuade Lyos to leave and Filia was without a doubt anxious to return to family. He hadn't seen them so far, so they were probably gone.

By the time the howl of Zelas Metaliom rang across the mountains, he and the others had taken down a quarter of the dragon army. Their strategic organization had been scattered and their leaders separated. Xelloss had caught sight of Milgazia a few times, and was a little miffed he had to retreated before getting a chance to kill him.

The dragons could play with the rest of the devil legions.

The mountain sealing Lei Magnus looked ordinary on the physical plane, but astrally it stood out like a solid, pulsing blue flesh. Arteries of light and hexagon membrane covering a skeleton wrought in a crude sphere. Firm roots anchored it to the planet's spirit, the so called mother earth. Despite Shabranigdu's struggle, the barrier would never have broken with earth feeding the god's corpse new energy.

At least, as long as the prison was healthy. It didn't stand out at a distance, but up close the imploded hexagons and bleeding muscles reeked of pain. The drum of a human heartbeat vibrated softly through it — Lei Magnus as enhanced by Shabranigdu's power.

The hole carved by Zelas, Dalphin and Dynast bore through a broken bone at the foot of the mountain, where the god's power had torn away in its attempt to follow the pillar. Earth had kept it, but with effort.

Something wasn't right. When he had seen Luna the other day, Siephied's power had settled closer to her than ever, nestled into her human soul. This holy power did not such thing. While he couldn't feel the flow's direction, he could guess : Lyos pulled it.

This could be a problem.

"Is something wrong?" Rashat asked.

"I'm wondering whether this will affect my injury," Xelloss said a second after reminding himself this was a legitimate concern.

They passed through the mountains without projection, since the physical space remained untouched. The mountain was hollow, they projected against at the closest opportunity. Any of them would imply it was to communicate more easily, but the truth was their blindness. The holy power scraped at their astral skin, the murk of their home plane more impenetrable than ever. The faint, physical blue glow at least allowed them to move ahead by watching the rocks go by.

Zelas howled again, providing their only beacon to a cave deeper into the mountain. Cold, dark and stereotypically gloomy, if not for the most epic popsicle at its center. Xelloss liked to teach little kids to freeze insects in icecream and give it to their playground enemies or hated adults. Ragradia's work here trumped it by a few miles, he needed to bring this up with her next time.

The three retainers stood before it, waiting for their subjects to join them. Hairline cracks were in the ice before them, but not much else.

"Ah, you're here. Come help us," Dynast said. "This is more difficult than we expected."

Xelloss turned to his true form and together with his liege wielding both her swords, he attacked. Dynast's power took the chill of deep winter, Dalphin's attack flowed as water and Zelas's light broke into threads. They never got perfect harmony, but the attacks converged close enough to turn that hairline crack into a network.

Neither human form nor devil's true self stirred just yet. He didn't look like much now, but he'd been glorious even before becoming a so called ultimate evil. In the world of humans, those of greater skills yet lesser presentableness stood poor chances. Lei possessed both the beauty of a young human man and the great skill of a wiseman. No wonder it had been _this_ host whom they found and broken, yet none of the others all across the world.

Xelloss had only interacted with Lei Shabranigdu once, when rewarded for his tactical prowess against the dragons. Some last vestige of humanity must have been in him, that Lei found value in reward and physical tokens.

From then on, he was a bland mutant crab thing. Xelloss had been a tad disappointed to learn that yes, the real Shabranigdu was eldritch chaos and he'd probably never get to see him. This here had none of the numerous eyes, half jaws pushing out of skin or skinless flesh that the whole Shabranigdu had possessed. _That_ Shabranigdu would never be a sitting duck. He would have gone straight north instead of chasing random adventurers. Gathered his armies.

How much influence had Lezo possessed to dumb down Shabranigdu? Perhaps Shabranigdu wasn't that bright to begin with. He'd never needed to be, primitive force of nature that he was. Xelloss could believe such a simple mind to be restrained by the complexity of even such a thing as a humans in their shortlived mess. Still, a dark lord stopped by mere mortal emotions? What worth existed in serving one such as that? The Lord of Nightmares respected a strong desire, but this was an entirely different matter than being _inconvenienced_ by them.

Even if he and his liege hadn't been on a mission from the Lord of Nightmares herself, he would have been repulsed to serve him He wished for a chimera to step out for more than one reason, not just to have a reason to turn against him without jeopardizing his creator's plans, but also because Lei was probably smarter than Shabranigdu. If the Lord of Nightmares did wish for the world to end, he didn't want to be led to it by an idiot.

The ice crystal broke in a bright flash. Pieces ringed through the cave and scattered against the walls, leaving behind a limp dark lord and a staggering human body. All of the devils took a knee and turned their eyes down.

Dalphin raised her head slightly, asking, "My lord, do you require aid?"

He nodded, wordless, and she offered her hand in the same silence. Lei Magnus let her lead him to more even ground, all the while using his force to restore his ill human body. The kind of healing of an immortality pledge : nothing but substitution, rather than true restoration.

"I hope you'll soon be able to withdraw to the astral plane, lord Shabranigdu," Dynast said. "We have a glorious war going on outside! Surely you'll be able to feed and restore yourself. Not only is there an army of dragons, humans and elves outside, we also have the beginning of invasions in every country in the ex-barrier's region."

"Excellent," Lei said with a great calmness. He looked at Zelas, then briefly at Xelloss. Scrutinizing, critical. He smiled at either, but there was no more kindness in it than Dalphin's own smile.

Dalphin led him to a place away from the holy cluster, where he did the human thing of taking in a breath of fresh air.

"I am not well," he said. "We must retreat before any gods arrive."

"We need not worry for the gods, they are all disabled," Dalphin said. "We have stolen the mist precious thing from them, and turned it against them! Oh, you will see soon. Please, stay and feast on the war."

"Yes, it'll be a fitting farewell to this prison!" Dynast said, kicking the remnant of the crystal prison.

"No, we must retreat. I see Zelas and Xelloss have taken damage and no sign of your priest and general. Hellmaster Fibrizo, Demon Dragon Garv and Raltaak are missing too. I will not take risks."

"Oh, they're not gone because of the dragons or gods. That's just the fault of Lina Inverse. Well, not Garv, but she was involved in luring him out, so ..."

Lei Magnus held up his hand, silencing him.

"Will someone more coherent run this by me again? Lina Inverse. She better be the Knight of Siephied with the Blast Sword."

"She's a human woman with a great magical capacity. She's the Knight of Siephied's sister, but carries no god or devil part herself. Her companion wielded Gorun Nova and later the Blast Sword, but the destruction lies with her and the Giga Slave spell," Zelas said. "The good news is that she has not been seen for three years, my lord. I don't think you—"

"We _will_ leave now. I cannot withdraw yet, so you will carve me an exit," he said. The compulsion of Shabranigdu's entire being lay behind the words. Zelas stiffened up just a moment, repulsed by the power's pull on her mind, then she and Dalphin moved.

Dynast didn't, since his foot had frozen solid to the crystal, curtsy of the holy magic grabbing anything devilish.

Hmm ... Lei had stepped out just a little too easily, hadn't he?

He didn't look quite like Luna's chimeraism, but the smoothness of power despite the inability to lose the organic form was similar to hers. This kind subtlety wasn't something one would notice unless one knew what to look for, however. All the chimeras crafted rather than pulled had a different power integration.

Most importantly, unlike with Luke, whose feelings remained separate from Shabranigdu, there was no clear emotional conflict. He felt something dangerously close to genuine happiness.

The others hadn't noticed this yet. It was poor form to feed on their lord, they probably all had their consumption channels off. There had to be a way to use that.

Xelloss scribbled something on his hand.

Zelas worked on a physical way out, using her more solid projection to carve into the rock directly. Dalphin had gone outside, working inward from there. Rashat accompanied her to carry orders to the troops.

That left Dynast with his foot stuck, and Grau hovering around on the edge.

He approached his own liege and asked, louder than necessary, "How are you doing, my liege?"

"I regret we won't stay to feed," she said with the same loudness. "The damage I took from Rangort left be starving."

"I feel fairly miserable too, perhaps I can be of assistance?"

"It will have to do," she said as she switched her miasma channels open. Almost immediately, she gagged. Unlike Xelloss, she had a stronger knack for acting. Eyes wide and jaws agape, she looked over her shoulder for a second, then back.

Xelloss held up his hand just for Zelas to see, allowing her to read a rather shocking but irrelevant truth : some time after Lina's defeat of mutant crab 3, Luna had dragged him and Filia on an adventure that had resulted in them overthrowing a corrupt monarchy. Coupled with some embarrassing and juicy details on how that had unfolded, Zelas felt a reasonable amount of shock just in time to be credible for Grau's newly opened miasma channels.

As expected, Grau noticed. Xelloss could almost see the gears spinning back to when he'd suggested the gods rigged their spells to turn devils into pro-existence chimeras.

Grau took a sip of emotions, covertly and found not just Zelas's shock but also Lei's incriminating emotional scenery. Wasting no time to shuffle to Dynast, he whispered, "Lord Dynast Grauscherrer?"

Lei Magnus, with his humans ears, heard nothing. Xelloss and Zelas poured a little wolf in their projections, however. Zelas and Xelloss allowed themselves to smirk as long as their faces were to the wall.

Grau wasted very little words on the actual suspicion of chimerahood, but when this wasn't received well.

"Oh, but lord Dynast, I mean no offense. Off course you would be the first to notice a problem! I merely suggested because as I stood closer, I noticed lord Zelas's discomfort. I guessed correctly she had eaten something bad and took a taste of the emotions around. Not that I doubt lord Shabranigdu's power in any way, but ... lord Dynast, ehm, I don't think our king stands before us. That figure over there is really, really _happy_ to be free."

"Nonsense. Our lord has every reason to be thrilled to be free. You are mistaken enthusiasm for the imminent end of the world for joy to be alive," Dynast said. He almost had his foot loose. With one final pull, he staggered back. He almost bumped into Lei Magnus, who cast him an irritated glance and zapped him away.

Somewhere in there Dynast must have taken a sip, because he backed off in the way animals feared a top predator. Forcing composure onto himself, he stood straight, dusted off and said, "Are you really lord Shabranigdu?"

Lei Magnus squinted his eyes and said, "Bow."

Dynast obeyed. "Does that answer your question?"

The order had been to Dynast directly, or at least interpretable in such a manner. Zelas grabbed Dynast and Xelloss went for Grau. They bolted out of the hole. Once outside, Zelas and Xelloss projected again, Dynast and Grau followed suit.

"Why'd you do that?" Dynast asked, stomping his foot.

"Just because he can command you does not mean he is lord Shabranigdu," Zelas said. "Do remember Garv and his creations."

"I knew that! I talked about your assumption I needed saving."

"My apologies, I panicked," Zelas said. She didn't even need to lie or trick about that.

Dalphin spotted them and abandoned her work.

"Why are you here?" she asked.

"Lord Shabranigdu has unfortunately become a chimera," Zelas said. "Seeing he sought to deceive us, we thought it a wise choice to flee."

"How would you get the idea he is a chimera?" Dalphin asked, eyes fixed on Zelas. "I was closer to him than anyone and did not see the signs. He looked as ever, not even like Luke Shabranigdu."

"I did not, lord Dalphin," Zelas said. "It was lord Dynast who revealed it. Might I add in the most inconvenient way possible. He confronted Lei Magnus, I barely managed to drag him away before Lei could give a command worse than bow."

Dalphin's black gaze stayed, but then she sweetly asked Dynast, "How _ever_ did you realize it?"

"He tasted happy. Too happy. I remembered that Garv turned into a chimera when exposed to Ragradia's power and realized what happened. It was a trap all along!"

"Ragradia wasted a thousand years of our time as we kept up that barrier to shield our sealed lord, only to spring another chimera on us," Zelas said.

"It may very well be," Dalphin said. "After all, what other reason would there be you'd assume he is a chimera? You wouldn't have seen another like him, would you?"

"Are you questioning my intellect?" Dynast demanded.

"No, why ever would we?" Zelas and Dalphin said, as part of their ancient injoke about Dynast's intelligence. After six thousand years, Dynast still hadn't caught on.

As always, they went on to dismiss every stupid suggestion he had on dealing with the situation. The consensus of Zelas and Dalphin was that they'd retreat and spread news of Lei Magnus being a threat, as to avoid devils swearing allegiance to him. From there on ... what? Zelas, Dalphin and Dynast could not approach him without risk of being commanded into servitude.

At the very least, in this situation neither he nor Zelas needed to trick themselves into any emotions. Lei Magnus being a chimera set yet another wild piece onto the board.

Zelas sent Xelloss to the east, telling him to focus on the retreat of the troops and not the enemy.

Just as he rounded a mountain to find the last battalion, a familiar voice called out.

"Beast priest!" He'd heard it before, yet at the same time couldn't place it.

In the cold blue shadow of a low mountain stood a woman in bright orange robes, calling for him and waving. Leyunso. By some magic, her voice left no echo.

After making sure no other devils were around to see him, he landed.

"Hello, miss Leyunso. How on earth did you end up here?"

"I let myself be caught, for lo and behold, perhaps it matters to me the world is not plunged into war. What a mess you've made! Why are Lyos and Filia here?" she asked.

Xelloss scratched the back of his head. "They are? Well, ehm ... I thought they'd have escaped by now."

"Teleporters can hitch hike on other teleporter's power when close enough and Lyos has no resilience against sleep spells," she said as she crossed her arms and tapped her foot. "You and Zelas aren't handling this disaster well."

More so than the holy touch of her aura, her straightforward statement jarred his mind. The curse compelled him to disbelieve her, but the first statement was something he'd suspected before and the second something he'd seen, while the third was a fact he wallowed in already. His mind switched to trying to convince him he's misheard or she'd misunderstood _something_ , _anything_ to dispel her words from belief. There it ran into his identity itself, which included the Do Not Do False Statements or direct deception.

As a devil, he had no organic brain so as long as accepting it required sacrificing his identity, it faded away like an echo. The compulsion could change logic but not emotions or identity. He shivered, his projection faltered again, but he remained himself and believed her.

"That was foul, miss Leyunso. Would you mind speaking indirectly?"

She rolled her eyes.

" _What_?" he asked, just a little miffed.

"You insisting on politeness is a tasteless kind of irony, beast priest. I have a bone to pick with Claire's attitude too, in case you're wondering, but right now I will help salvage this disaster. I'll confirm you that Lei Magnus became a chimera for the same reasons as Lyos and Luna, and I suspect he knows more than he lets on. Lyos will soon begin to draw in Ragradia's power. He and Filia need to be away from Kataart before Lei Magnus catches on."

"If you could just point me towards mister Lyos and miss Filia, I'll let them know."

Leyunso pinched her forehead. "You are honest to goodness clueless about the flow, aren't you? The magical landscape has been altered by the pillar's summon, by the release of Lei Magnus _and_ the flow towards the Aqualord's Knight. There's no navigating a changing magical field. I know for a fact that Filia taught you about beacons seven years ago. This place is the kind of distortion like around the spot where I fought Shabranigdu. Teleport into a distortion and flesh goes poof."

She pointed to the opposing mountain, which sported a gory smear still surrounded by a dying glow, a stew of rock, metal and pieces of dragon limbs.

Oh. Well then.

"Does she know she cannot teleport?"

"She's seen the results. Now listen. I know we agree Lei can't remain free. All he needs to do is take one walk in town, and he'll learn about funky business in the demon sea. Zelas and you need to stop playing it safe for yourself. Propose a truce with the dragons, corner Lei using the Zenaffa armors. In Ragradia's old temple, Lyos, Filia and the Sailoon soldiers that were forcibly recruited have organized. Ask them for help."

"We were planning to retreat, actually. It's far too great a risk to be here, Lei Magnus clearly intends to employ the retainers for something."

"Will you quit being so arrogant, you damned devils? You're not the secret masters of the game anymore! Even Claire's caught a clue by now."

"Well, if you have any better idea—"

"I hate how you derail everything, Xelloss," she said.

"Hmmph. Let's say we manage to retrain him. What will follow?"

Leyunso ran a hand over her hair. "I don't know. It will buy Lyos some time to integrate with Ragradia's power. That's unavoidable at this point. If that happens and he has some time to learn to control his new power, he could reseal Lei Magnus."

"Point taken," Xelloss aid. "I'll tell my liege the Beast Monarch what you suggested, but can not make a guarantee."

"I'll be around."

Xelloss couldn't technically disobey his liege, but he could take a break from an order if he intended to return to it later. Zelas had explicitly given him this permission, both for his safety and because dexterity with plans could prove useful. He might have taken a few liberties or two that made her furious, but overall the system worked. Like right now. He warned every devil on the way back to his liege, and that was enough.

Zelas oversaw the retreat from the clouds, her pale colors blending with the sunrise colors. If his eyes hadn't been so good, he might have missed her altogether.

Lacking any smooth ground, he took a knee in mid air, level to her feet. "My liege, I've just met the one known as the Sage of Siephied. She is here to aid us."

He told her for as far as she could believe.

"What exactly does miss Leyunso think Lei Magnus knows?" Zelas asked.

"I'm sure miss Leyunso can enlighten us later. She intends to be around."

Zelas didn't say anything for several minutes, Xelloss waited. After a while she said, "What do you think?"

"I think I cannot take miss Filia and mister Lyos out of Kataart without being seen now that there is an army. When I was here last time, Claire's constant directions and the lesser population kept me busy. Now, teleportation isn't even an option."

More silence followed, filled only with her gnashing teeth and whipping tail.

"Wait here. I'll talk to Dalphin," she said at last. "Your petty anxiety doesn't match this scenario, try to stop worrying about your pets."

He didn't have an answer for that. Not that he didn't know, but he'd told her many times. She hadn't outright condemned him for his fixation on interesting lifeforms, but it puzzled her. He had to fill time with something, though. Burning Claire Bible manuscripts only offered so much diversity.

Zelas left him in the clouds, and he was back to waiting. While occupied with nothing, a small flock of ruby dragons moved towards Lei's prison. He couldn't see the side where the retainers had begun carving the exit, and the surrounding area was yet untouched by the sun. After a little while, a short battle erupted in the dark, and the dragons didn't return.

Curious. If Lei Magnus had already freed himself and fought, this meant two things : he had superior control of his powers, and he was not interested in allying with the dragons. That, or his poor human eyesight had seen enemies. Either way, it was a small benefit to the situation. A chimera Lei with all of Shabranigdu's power allied to the dragons was about as big a problem as the gods regaining sanity.

It took Zelas a long time to return, but when she did, it was with a tentative grin.

"They have agreed to forming an allegiance with the dragons," she said. "We shall keep our distance, you will approach the dragons and are to use your reputation to force cooperation."

He bowed with a smile, and took off without another word, despite his curiosity to how that conversation with Dalphin and Dynast had gone.

Ragradia's old temple hadn't been broken by the invasion. Signs of combat were limited, as this wasn't a strategically important location.

A few of Sailoon's soldiers stood guard at the entrances. It wasn't a far fetched guess that Filia and Lyos had joined up with the forced recruits to create a save haven. Actually, he ought to not be surprised by that.

Ever the master of tact (or rather, servant to the secret understanding he had no tact), Xelloss pulled a handkerchief from his bag and tied it to his staff. Waving it, he landed near a random Sailoon brand chimera.

"Hello! I'm here under a cease fire, no need to be upset."

Proving he hadn't listened at all, the soldier became upset and ran inside, shouting that Xelloss had arrived.

"No need for drama either," he muttered.

Another Sailoon soldier down the slope still stood there, watching. Xelloss waved the flag at him, but got no approach. The soldier shouted something, and an elf hesitantly flew to her, then left again.

Maybe they didn't take him serious.

Maybe there shouldn't have been flowers on the handkerchief.

"That's _my_ handkerchief, you thief!"

Maybe he should have borrowed it from someone other than Filia.

He turned his eyes back to the ruin and yes, there she stood. Her stance was defiant, but he tasted anxiety, fear and horror below her strength. Blood marred her dress and cloak. Out of the floor crawlspace she's come from, Sylphiel's head peaked.

"I didn't steal it! I fully acknowledge you as the owner of it," he said as he pulled it loose. "You handed it over yourself after you insisted I was too weak to go a whole week without turning my scent off around inconvenient places. Surely it wasn't _my_ fault I got a cold."

She marched over and snatched it from his hand. "That was five years ago, cockroach! Handkerchiefs are given on the understanding they are returned once used! Oh, and it _was_ your fault! You could have projected more durable lungs!"

Xelloss had a retort ready, but never got to use it because Sylphiel caught up and proved herself as a true follower of Lina Inverse : she backhanding him so hard his projection almost lost balance. He eve felt it in his astral body; she must have added a Visfarank.

Befuddled, Xelloss opened an eye at her. "Oh dear, once you pick up something, you pick it up well."

Filia stared wide eyed at Sylphiel. "He _lets_ you hit him? Do it again!"

Sylphiel ignored Xelloss, turning to Filia instead. "Half an hour ago, he slaughtered your kind! How can you act like this?"

Filia's mock rage replaced itself with drawn lines. To hide it, she drew her handkerchief across her face, wiping away grime and blood.

"He can't disobey orders as a devil. I hate what he did, I do, but what can I do against it?" she spoke in a monotone whisper, before resuming her lively voice. "But _this_ he has a choice in, unless mister cockroach has a secret order to rid the world of handkerchiefs?"

"Oh come now, aren't you overreacting a little?" he said lightly, hoping to tempt her away from that brink she teetered on. She just combined the brink with her frustration.

"Overreacting? I've been abducted, I have no idea whether my family is safe and I'm in the middle of a war! I have a right to be upset, you filthy trash!"

Xelloss smiled a little wider. "If I'm trash, what does that make the one who, ahem, brought you here under the guise of law?"

"I wouldn't know, Claire hasn't told us anything," she said, now in a whisper. "Neither have you."

"Miss Claire did try to arrange for your and mister Lyos's liberty," Sylphiel said, thick with doubt herself. "She sent me along for that reason."

"I am grateful for your help, miss Sylphiel, but that doesn't mean _they_ couldn't have done things far better."

"This isn't the time, miss Filia. We're in the middle of a disaster," Xelloss said through clenched teeth. He did not take well to insinuations of failure when they might be right.

"And whose fault is that? I'd like to know, so I can avoid more disaster. I can't trust Zelas with that, obviously. Miss Claire isn't as helpful as she ought to be either."

"Hmm, must be because she's under Val's shield. Anyway, w—" Xelloss started, but Filia's hand shot out and grabbed for his cloak. She jerked him off balance.

"Then _you_ tell me!" she hissed.

He removed her hand from his cloak. "Later. We have a little crisis, miss Filia. You see, our lord has—"

"Become a chimera like miss Luna and mister Lyos," Filia said. "Common enemy, etcetera."

"We suspected this would happen as soon as that pillar bent to Kataart," Sylphiel said.

"Ehm ... right. Now, if you'd kindly let me in and introduce me to the leaders, it would be a great help."

"Tell me straight : will you kill, harm or deceive anyone of us if we cooperate?" Filia asked.

"I do not intend to."

"No word tricks. Say _no_."

He crunched his face, irritated. "Fine. No."

Sylphiel called down the hole, "Mister Lyos, you can stand down. We're letting him in."

"You sure?"

"Mostly."

Xelloss followed them in silence. Filia and Sylphiel went ahead, while Lyos remained close behind him.

The interior of the temple had been changed from factory to medical ward. Clay had been thrown into useless chambers, while a cursory glance into the central hall revealed it full of the injured and their healers. A line was before the entrance, the lesser injured waiting for help.

Filia and Sylphiel led them past this, into smaller rooms. Xelloss began to spot familiar faces : higher ranked dragons, elven lieutenants. A few more of Sailoon's chimeras.

The rooms Milgazia and Azonge had used as office were filled to the brink with dragons in human form. Milgazia and Azonge he recognized, but the cluster of green haired ones were unfamiliar. Another bland golden with his hair pulled back stood up first, putting on bravado out of pride and zeal.

The room filled with fear, yet not a single interesting face here, only cowering.

"Fallen priestess, human, what possessed you to bring him here?" mister bland bravado said. Reeking of indulgent grandeur and selfimportance, the dragon only slightly inclined his head at the humanoids below him.

"He would have come in anyway," Filia bit at him.

Xelloss tried not to speculate on what fun conflicts there had been since her arrest, it would distract him too much. Scraping his throat, he addressed the dragon.

"Hello, my name is Xelloss, and with whom do I have the honor?"

"Ospirias."

Xelloss had expected a long chain of titles, but this one word was spoken with so much force and importance, the tone itself carried all that weight. Too bad it was wasted on anyone not in his shivering tribe.

"Well, mister Ospirias, surely it has come to your attention that all the devils fled abruptly? It appears that Lei Magnus has become the dominant personality. For the beginning of his arising, he—

"We are aware of the situation, devil," Ospirias said, oozing impatience. "Those two blasphemers have voiced their opinion, and we have confirmed enough.

"Well then, what will you do? Try to strike an alliance with him, or contain him? We will aid you in the latter, and in the former I'm afraid we can't let it go so far."

Ospirias took giddy pride in his ability to stay calm. "I am aware of what you can do to us, but just as much as what fate will occur when a rogue chimera goes free. Your bitch and her kind cannot disobey him, can they?"

"As true is it is that my liege is a bitch, I'm fairly certain you meant it as an insult. Mind your language, mister Ospirias," Xelloss said, now with his eyes open.

"I shall mind what outcome is holiest," he said.

"Will you shut up?" Lyos said, kicking the wall. A little dust came down, reminding the dragons they were the weaker here. He turned to Xelloss. "You. What kind of a person was Lei Magnus before Shabranigdu took over?"

"I'm afraid I don't know," Xelloss said, but his words drowned in the roar Ospirias let go.

"Mind your tongue, human. A devil is no worthier source of information than my own people!"

Lyos muttered something about not being a human anymore, but it drowned in Filia's growl. She'd never done that before having a child to take care of, and even then sparsely. He must have missed something interesting between her and Ospirias.

"Your kind of source got people killed when they didn't need to!" she said, every word underscored with dragon voice.

"If we'd go by your standards, fallen priestess, there would be _no_ people in this world who deserved to die." The way Ospirias tilted his head up and to the side, subtly nodding at Xelloss but looking _at her,_ it belied the kind of person who would take joy in death had they been raised in another culture. Xelloss had seen many a person like this, but rarely with dragons.

"Standards? At least I have them, unlike the gods."

Such a simple little phrase, _unlike the gods_. Such massive implications that all the dragons in the room forgot Xelloss was there for a few seconds.

See, _this_ is when you pulled out a chair to watch. Preferably with popcorn.

"Oh, I assure you, _lord_ ," Filia hissed, "that the gods care nothing for a little air vibration up north. In fact, they will not and cannot do anything right now. Get it through your thick skull that we're on our own! We have people to protect!"

As always, she kept her attachments in her heart no matter what cold logic said and then topped it off with something rebellious. All in the name of doing the right thing, code be damned. Eccentricity and dedication at its finest deserved applause, which he was happy to provide.

"I've been in your radius for five minutes and damn, I suddenly have a lot more confidence about those pro-existence claims Lina made," Lyos said as he leaned in. "Zelas just tasted sick, but hey, she was stomaching Luna. You really are _happy_."

"Do try to keep your voice down," Xelloss said with one eye open. "I have a reputation to preserve."

"What, you mean the others devils haven't noticed yet? You're not exactly a closed scroll here," Lyos snickered. "I bet you have to avoid Deep Sea Dalphin a lot, don't you?"

Xelloss was about to quip something perhaps about Lyos' fashion choices when something passed through the door. Leyunso's dim but ancient holiness preceded her by a few meters. Through the muck of the astral plane, he just saw the outline of elves blocking her way. Xelloss sharpened his ears.

They knew she was the sage of Siephied, but there was no getting them to understand she could help. Just because someone believed something didn't mean they actually acted on it, so her statements that she _couldn't_ help at all got her nowhere. They read her as sarcastic and just followed their orders.

Her curse was a great power in a sense, but off course she could nary say a sentence without people disbelieving her. Those who didn't know of her situation heard sarcasm at best, and a liar at worst. She'd never be fully trusted.

He stopped projecting in the office and returned outside, right between Leyunso and the elves.

"What seems to be the problem?"

The elves shrunk away without a word. Xelloss savored their fright before saying, "You went through so much trouble to find her, yet when she offers help you won't let her? Tsstss."

He doubted they heard him better than they heard her. Boring.

Xelloss led her in just as Milgazia and Azonge put a stop to the debate between Filia and Ospirias, much to Xelloss's disappointment.

"Ahem, may I introduce miss Leyunso?" he said. "Assuming you've not done so already."

"Oh, they actually tried to lock her up," Lyos said. "How'd you know her name? She wouldn't tell us."

"Miss Leyunso has a mystical speech impediment, let us leave it at that. Now, I want you all to listen to her as we plan our move against Lei Magnus. Understood?"

Like they could deny him.

Filia tried to strike up a conversation with Leyunso, only to get an apologetic smile.

"Speech impediment?" she asked Xelloss.

He just shrugged, and she pouted.

From then on Xelloss leaned back against a pillar while the dragons argued with one another. Now given levity and ears, Leyunso broke their beliefs into something more convenient to her.

Here, one said they should flee to the edge of Kataart and travel south, to build a stronghold there until Rangort was better. Leyunso claimed this was an excellent idea, that would result in safety and victory. Only one actually disbelieved that this was the right course off the bat, the others disbelieved she gave honest advice and suspected she had ulterior motives.

She couldn't sway the belief in things that were known already, apparently. Claiming the sky was blue on a blue sky day would likely result in the listener believing her to be a deranged before questioning the color. They did not disbelieve what she said, but what she as a person claimed. Her greatest sway was over abstract things, like assumptions, theories and suspicions.

When she said, "Lei Magnus is worthy of your trust", she reaped the most. This was a claim about another mind in a situation where none had much facts to go on and that was dependent on their actions too. All new beliefs were fresh to be planted.

Off course, such a blunt statement that everyone idisbelieved resulted in her seen as a traitor, who tried to persuade them to the wrong cause of action. They almost kicked her out, but Xelloss stopped them and gave his own spiel of her uses.

From there on, Xelloss chose to speak on her behalf, she did not seem to mind he got credit for some tricks of her own.

As long as Shabranigdu was fully tied to a host, he could not withdraw to the astral plane. Placing a Zenaffa armor on him was a strong possibility. Perhaps multiples even, so he couldn't just will them to work for him. Choose the most loyal armors, not bent easily by will. They could use fusion magic to shield against possible attacks.

Details on the organization, feigns and tricks could be left to the dragons. Nobody quite said it, but Xelloss was better at disrupting their order than making it. Disrupting it in the most messy way possible.

He couldn't blame them for their disgust and loathing at working with him. The sentiment was mutual most deeply. With some teeth pulling, Xelloss had to admit to himself Milgazia wasn't even the worst of this sorry bunch of bland elders — he once vaguely smiled when Memphis burst in.

**· · · · · · ·**

After the planning stages completed and the armies reorganized, Xelloss and Leyunso went outside. Having taken the top exit, they had enough shelter from the ruins, yet could look out far if they wished; not that Leyunso needed that.

Rows of water ran down their exit tunnel and they arrived in pouring rain. Not snow, as it ought to be at this altitude. Xelloss held up his hand to the warm drops, finding residue of magic within them.

"How long do you believe it will take for Ragradia's power to attach to Lyos?"

"Maybe a few days," she said. "Plenty of time for you to tell him and Filia about me and about Tel al-Metaliom's purpose, or at least explain my curse so I can communicate more clearly."

"My liege forbade me."

"Then argue with her," Leyunso said. "I know you're allowed to do that."

"We have bigger problems right now. You can take it to my liege the Beast Monarch yourself later, she understands enough of your curse."

Leyunso groaned, running a hand over her hair again. "She's coming."

A minute or so later, Filia peeked out of the floor. The rain baffled her, then she pulled her cloak over her head. She still hadn't gotten herself a new, ridiculous hat. Xelloss was disappointed, he'd hoped it would surface at some point.

Ignoring Xelloss, she walked up to Leyunso and said, "Miss Leyunso, if you could please help me improve my Holy Rezast, I would appreciate it a lot. Xelloss and I do somewhat better fusion magic if I'm not actively loathing him."

"Yes, I planned to rely on your fusion magic rather than that of someone else I am not summoning as I speak."

"Why do you always speak like that?" she asked with a frown. "I get the feeling you lie, but not out of malice. The conclusions the others draw are exactly what you want, right?"

Leyunso gave her a curious head tilt.

"Seven years with Xelloss. I picked up a few things about double play," she said in a light tone.

Leyunso grabbed Xelloss's shoulder and whispered in his ear, "Tell her about how exactly my curse works. Do you really want me to try and mess up her mind? Something as simple as saying her magic's great can result in her never being able to believe her work on it is right, but I think she can handle my power if she gets the details."

"I'd much rather you didn't try at all," Xelloss said before turning to Filia. "She can help you with whatever flow related spell you wish, just don't expect her to talk. The real question is, why do you need that spell at all?"

Filia looked like she wanted to shout so many things at the same time that she could not choose, her lips twitching. She pressed her lips together, took her cloak off and tossed it before him. "I've been here the entire time, Xelloss. I saw you. You don't need to ask this."

What a disappointing response. He thought she overreacted. She'd always known he was a killer and had dealt with that just fine before.

Filia begin her spell. Under Leyunso's guidance, the circle's unseen four points converged from Filia's crossed eye shapes to a simpler cross. Like a flame, her emotions sizzled out. Not just her loathing, but also her anxiety, sorrow and rage. It wasn't Filia anymore who stood before him.

 _This_ was true mind control, not the flimsiness that Lezo, Eris, Hylaker or Hellmaster Fibrizo had employed. All they did was cancel out the mind so they could control the body, a basic trick by hijacking the organ that mediated between soul and flesh.

As fascinating and terrifying as this power was, Xelloss hated it above all. In a while, all her ire would regrow the moment she recalled it, but until then she would be this mockery of her lively self. He didn't mind times they didn't snipe : it was natural to be practical during a truce, neither stopped being themselves. This was different.

Did she not understand how disturbing it was, to deny one's own emotions? Just cast them aside like a discarded piece of clothing. To a devil, it'd hurt like denying one's own identity.

"You need to figure out some other way," he said, both eyes open so she got how serious this was. "This isn't natural."

"Something just _I_ should do? See, that is _exactly_ why I need this spell." She resolutely turned her back to him and resumed her prayed pose. After the spell finished, a blank slate remained. Having barely any positive emotions to fill the void, it disturbed Xelloss all the more. The fragments of sorrow and rage boiled back the moment she saw her bloodstained cloak, but it was dim and she forced her mind away. After thanking Leyunso for her help and ignoring Xelloss some more, she went back inside.

"How could you help her with this? It's self mutilation," he asked once she was gone.

Leyunso laughed. Of all response, _she laughed_.

"That's what it looks like from an astral point of view, doesn't it?"

"You're saying you changed by becoming organic?"

"No, I'm not _that_ human. I just have a better idea of why they think the way they do," she said. Lacing her fingers together, she stretched her arms up into the rain. "Enough of an idea to know you can't last this way, beast priest."

"Last what way?"

"Let me put it this way. Did you ever wonder how we wiped out the center of the continent in our constant battle, yet never moved to the borders? We did not start out as those super powers that leveled continents. That only happened after feeding for millenniums on end. We were always cautious for ensuring we had a food source as we fought. It's always the Phied who is fed up with the fight and puts an end to it. I suggested we go all out one day, not care for how much power we lost because we could rebuild it. We gambled the world and fought on and on, till most of our food had been wiped out. This did not matter to me. I was to protect existence, not life. Somewhere while we fought, I realized I didn't care to live myself. I don't even know what exactly pushed me to realize it. Maybe the thousands of prayers for salvation and forgiveness, or the weakness creeping up on, or the voices of Volphied and the others in their own struggle.

I killed myself and returned to Her because I realized I had nothing to want. When I broke Shabranigdu apart and truly believed Megiddo would cleanse him away, I thought I had fulfilled my purpose. When the Lord of Nightmares spat me back into the world, she did not say anything and I still don't know why exactly. Nothing had changed about me, save that I could not cease to exist and had no purpose. The curse on my speech was barely the topping of the joke.

I can die, though. I can suffer and hunger and be slung through Megiddo, save that Megiddo will take me even if I recall my past. I've lost my body many times until I had to develop the will to live, just to avoid the pain. I'd been told I'd never get away, but I could work to make it easier. The way to do that was to understand the others around me as people. Not just food, or enemy, or moving characters in Her game. There was no plan to live by. I've had to rely on them, or had to predict who would betray me, or who would break, and I had to know how to restore things. I had to see and understand them as people, or I died."

"I fully acknowledge people and respect their choices as far as it's necessary," he huffed. "If you are getting at my liege the Beast Monarch and I being amateurs, then—"

"Not good enough, beast priest. That just makes it worse when you still act like everyone's a characters on your playboard."

She stood up and tapped his shoulder, which was dry. He hadn't bothered simulating the effect of rain on himself, everyone knew what he was. Leyunso on the other hand was soaked, only avoiding to shiver by magic around her.

"This right here is a problem. You're much smaller than you see yourself."

"Compared to you, I'm not the one in dire need for advice."

She laughed again. "Oh, but you are. I will always come back as myself, even despite Megiddo and Hell. I'm the one true immortal in this world because nothing can touch my mind or soul. You on the other hand are so weak you can barely use another's power without harming yourself. If you're destroyed, you're gone."

"I know that," he said, but he couldn't make it sound as carefree as he wanted. He remembered exactly how Zelas had felt when Lei commanded her. Even before Fibrizo she hadn't felt this way, perhaps because then she'd already had a solid plan. If she didn't have a plan, he didn't either.

**· · · · · · ·**


	23. Milgazia's Maledict

**· · · · · · ·**

The scent of burned flesh carried through the halls and the way the corpses jerked when deposited on the ground had its own crispy sound.

He didn't blame the workers for their rough treatment of the dead, they had seen too many. They rushed out of the death ward, back to the living that needed more help.

Still, Milgazia had to kneel down and pay his respects to his old friend. He laid a hand over the elf's face, trying to close the remaining eye without success — the lid had melted into the socket. He considered laying his cloak over him, but that would make his friend stand out from the rows. That didn't seem right. In dead all were equal.

The remains of the Zenaffa writhed around the corpse, weakened without a magic source to feed on. Milgazia coaxed it to let go, allowing it to latch onto his arm.

He carried the miserable little thing to the nearest Zenaffa herder, whose duty was to salvage the damage armors. Neither of them spoke when he handed it over.

Between the herder and the exit door lay three rows of scorched elves from, wall to wall. Xelloss had taken all of a second to figure out how to take down a Zenaffa warrior without testing his power on the armor itself.

Milgazia had learned to use a human form thousands of years ago, but now his step felt heavier than it should be. The itch of wings and tail trying to grow out needed constant attention, the weight of his bones couldn't have enough magic.

This wasn't new. He'd promised himself he'd do better next time. Another war had always been a certainty. He thought he knew what to expect, only to realize it wasn't about knowing, but feeling.

"Uncle, where are you?" The voice came from outside the ward, racing closer with each word.

He had to tell her. She could handle it, he was sure. She'd dealt with her mother's death well, she'd accept her father's. If anything, it would just add to her drive.

"Uncle, they're going to start soon!"

He hurried to meet Memphis, too weak to let her come here. Nobody to mention it in passing, no chance of her seeing the corpse carried away or hearing the last calls of the Zenaffa.

Just as he rounded the corner, Memphis bumped into him and toppled over as a result. Rubbing her nose, she stood up. "You're heavy today, uncle."

"I just came from the sick ward," he said, and needed to say no more.

"We'll make the devil clan pay, uncle, I swear. Just let me out there!" Memphis said. The proud smile she usually wore when declaring she'd win a battle wasn't there.

"Memphy, we've been over this. We are not attacking the devil armies and you are too volatile for this delicate operation."

"Uncle! You need me, I'm one of the best Zenaffa warriors!"

A healer passing by hushed her. "There are sick people nearby, have some respect."

"Sorry," Memphis said, too loud. She took the healer by the arm. "Hey, is father in the sick bay? I haven't found him yet. I bet he can speak for me."

"I haven't seen him," the healer said before moving on.

"Maybe we can get you a supporting job, Memphy, but only if you swear not to do your own thing. You must follow your instructions to the word," Milgazia said, against all rhyme and reason.

"I won't let you down!" Memphis said, still too loud.

"I said maybe. Let's visit the strategists." He took her by the shoulder and pushed her away from the death ward. "The fact that you cannot keep your voice down in this area does not speak in your favor."

"This better?" she whispered.

"Yes. Too late, but better."

The truth was that _he_ couldn't handle her sorrow right now.

They sought out the other elder dragons, finding them in the designated war hall close to the surface. Azonge and Ospirias were in a heated debate, which froze when they saw Milgazia. While Ospirias crossed his arms and looked away, Azonge held out his arms and stepped to Milgazia.

"Ah, Milgazia. I've gotten word from down the mountains. The human armies of Dills will deal with the devils that dispersed south. First word is they've massacred the swarms. See, with our help even humans can rise to the challenge!"

"What a waste of resources," Ospirias said.

"Lowlife or not, they are sapient beings and must be protected," Azonge snarled. "If you must have a more direct benefit, Ospirias, they're killing our enemy. Is even that that not good enough for you?"

"The question is whether it is good enough for our gods," Ospirias said. "We are allying with the dreaded Xelloss and a heretical dragon, whose blasphemous magic would shield us better than our gods?"

"I don't know what the gods would approve of," Azonge said, "You may have noticed they are ill at the time. Now, organizing an army, especially one of humans, is very difficult. I would know. Earthlord Rangort must have known about Sailoon for a time already, yet only after that pillar drives the gods mad do we get this strange order to conquer Sailoon and find random people. Rather strange, isn't it?"

"Airlord Valwin and Flarelord Vrabazard cannot even communicate or command angels. Clearly, Earthlord Rangort has reason," one of Rangort's monks said.

"No, actually this is not clear at all," Azonge said. "Airlord Valwin and Flarelord Vrabazard have no angels. Maybe if they did, they'd be sending us strange orders too."

"You are treading close to heresy," Ospirias said. "You imply Earthlord Rangort is insane?"

"We've seen evidence the gods are not of good health! Scorched lands in the east and the west! Your own lands have burned!" Azonge snapped, fangs growing as he spoke. "Milgazia. Say something! Stop being so cautious!"

"Azonge is correct that there has been great devastation, but this has not occurred down south, has it?" Milgazia asked.

"Admittedly, Earthlord Rangort has spent a lot of time in hell," another of Rangort's monks said. Milgazia really had to catch their names some time.

"The assumption Earthlord Rangort is affected by the foul curse has no bearing in reality," Ospirias said, and off course Azonge made a proverbial lunge for his throat.

At any other time, Milgazia would have broken up the verbal fight, but not now. Compared to everything he had to do, it was trivial.

Especially in light of who was here. On the other end of the hall, Xelloss sat cross legged on a broken statue while humming a cheerful tune. Memphis glared at him. Milgazia couldn't tell what would happen if she knew he'd burned her father to death. The loathed but distant murderer would hit home a lot more.

Below the statue, Filia, Lyos and the soldiers recruited from Sailoon gathered, speaking in hushed voices. None of the chimeras were harmed by Xelloss, their skin too enduring to fire. Milgazia didn't want to linger on why he hadn't choked them. In fact, Xelloss had omitted Rangort's troops the most.

A Sailoonian separated to give him some new information : Lei Magnus could not withdraw to the astral plane at all. He'd emerged from the mountain using power to blast and melt the rocks away, but had not flown away.

Milgazia was about to share to tell this to the arguing leaders when Lassandra suddenly stood at his side.

"Clear a room for me," she said. Something pulled at him to comply, a strange sense of ease and need. He found her a room, which Memphis cleared away.

The Sage stepped inside and began wordless magic. Milgazia could neither sense nor see anything she did, only an elegant motion with her hand directing the flow. Whatever she was, she blended into the world without a seam.

Xelloss shifted into the room, standing as far from Milgazia as possible. Both he and Memphis ignored him.

Between the Sage's hands, a pillar of Megiddo flared up. In the facing light a white-haired human woman remained, as opposed to the draconic angels Milgazia had seen a few thousand years ago.

In fact, both in face and the color of her clothing ... that was one of Lina Inverse's companions. Milina. This woman should be dead, yet here she stood as an angel. What had happened?

"Lassandra?" Milina asked. Then she spotted Xelloss and her face contorted, but she made no move to attack.

"Hello again, miss Milina. If I may, the lady here would prefer to be called Leyunso. You may find it useful to know ... ahem ..." He reached into his bag and pulled out pen and paper. After scribbling something, he handed her the note.

She looked up sharp after reading it. "This isn't a joke or word trick?"

"None the least, miss Milina," Xelloss said.

"This is will be difficult communicating, but I will try, lord ... should I call you any title?" Milina asked Lassandra.

"Yes, whatever you want," Lassandra said.

"Leyunso it is," Milina said.

"We clearly won't get along," Lassandra said despite her happy grin.

"Why did you summon me? I should not be away for too long." She didn't look at Leyunso, but around. "If it's about this reconfiguration in the flow, I can't handle it."

"No, we have a different situation. We require a diversion," Milgazia said. "A holy entity such as you would be the only one to not arouse suspicion from Lei Magnus—"

Milina held up her hand. "Hold it, Milgazia. What's going on?"

Before anyone else could, Xelloss rattled off a lengthy explanation that only had one line dedicated to his recent slaughter. Milgazia wondered whether Milina had anything to say about that, knowing her past associations. Chastising a devil was useless, off course, but the mere act would serve to acknowledge the tragedy.

All Milina said was, "Xelloss, you had orders and Zelas played along with the others?"

"I'm afraid so."

The silence lasted long before Milina said, "I need to talk to Zelas."

"Can this wait until after Lei Magnus is subdued?" Lassandra said. "Just so he doesn't run off in the meantime?"

"I suppose," Milina said. "Give me the details of your plan."

"I mean no disrespect, but wouldn't it be better if there are multiple angels?" Milgazia said. "Perhaps you can return to your station then."

"They are too busy." That was a strange answer, given that she was available.

"Let's join the others," Xelloss said. "They're already aware you'll come, but I you might want to have a word with them first."

Milina nodded. Lassandra already was out of the room, the angel and devil followed. Milgazia went last, taking one step after another.

Why was she an angel? The last he'd heard of her was when Lina Inverse told him about why Shabranigdu had woken in Luke. Only one thing was certain : the gods held a plan that he had no grip on. The world had come to far the dragons were left behind.

Milina moved towards the group of Filia, Xelloss and Lyos, foregoing the leaders of the dragon clans altogether. Having nothing else to do, Milgazia followed her.

"Filia Ul Copt? I am Milina. I'm here to—" Milina started.

Filia's eyes went wide. "Oh my goodness, you're miss Milina? Miss Lina told me about you. How can you be here? What's with those wings?"

"There's something weird about her," Lyos said. "I think she's somehow godly, but I'm not sure how. What wings?"

"You don't see them, mister Lyos? She's not just a human soul."

Milina blinked, looking between the two. "Xelloss? Why are they not informed yet?"

"Orders," Xelloss chirped.

Milina groaned. "Zelas can choke on my feathers for all I care. Lyos, Filia, I'm an chimera of Rangort, who gave me a little of hir power. I also am in on Lina's plot. I guard Luke in hell and with him I'm an alternative fusion source. The plan only uses you two since Luke cannot leave hell. I'll tell you more after this is over, in private. For now, Filia, do you have that hell gem of the Ancients with you?"

Filia nodded and pulled it out of the pocket space gem on her glove. "Why do you need it?"

"It can link to the Ancient Dragon spirits in hell. Since they are near Luke, they can arrange a channel from him tome, allowing us to fuse magic for as much as can be transferred."

Filia handed her the orb, which Milina took between her hands. Unbeknownst to them, Milgazia had to fight off a slew of questions. She had a hell gem of the Ancient Dragons. Did she even understand what that meant? If she had shown him this before, there would have been no need for doubt.

"By the way, when did you become able to see the astral plane?" Milina asked.

"A while ago I used a piece of Valwin's power to project myself onto the astral plane. Can I mention ... her, you know. Blue. She helped. I learned from miss Luna too. Later I gave the part to someone who could use it more, but I can still see a little."

"Shame you let it go, though that might have saved you too. If the devils had seen you with godly power, you would have become a prime target," Milina said. At this point, she flexed her back, causing white feathered wings to unfold.

Memphis finally found her tongue back; Milgazia had almost forgotten she was with him. "Whoa, what is going on? How did you get part of Valwin's power? Who is Blue? What plot of Lina?"

Filia fidgeted with her gloves. "Eh ... it's a long story."

"Too long for now," Lyos said. "Did anyone forget Lei Magnus?"

"Should we contain him at all? Maybe he could be our ally," Filia said. Milgazia was on the verge of agreeing, but Filia herself backed down. "I guess we can't trust him, but maybe we can ... persuade him ... "

"Typical miss Filia, always clinging to the ridiculous. Maybe you're just hoping for a project," Xelloss said.

"Shut up, trash," Filia snapped. "You wouldn't understand."

"Thank chaos I do not," he said with an extra wide smile. "Your thought process would impair my sanity."

Filia gritted her fangs and stiffly walked away, muttering things Milgazia would never dare to say out loud to a devil.

**· · · · · · ·**

Milgazia went through the motions with thousands of years of practice behind him and fresh fear to keep him focused. Direct the elves, reign in a hyperactive Memphis and remember nobody can teleport. There must be escape routes. Regulate light sources. Healers must be at stand by.

None of his clan or the elf clan would be involved in the immediate attack; Memphis would only aid indirectly. Her Zenaffa would be amongst the ten chosen to imprison Lei.

More than a few soldiers asked why they didn't ally with Lei Magnus if he was the enemy of the devils. Milgazia repeated the same to all of them : Ospirias had sent a group of ruby dragons to negotiate, but they had been killed on sight.

It was clear Lei could not be trusted, but _how_ they'd become so convinced he was not ... Lei Magnus had killed dragons, sure, but humans could not see well in the dark and devil sight across the astral plane was far more limited than its holy variant. He might have attacked preemptively since other dragons had already fired at him at an earlier point.

Milgazia knew with certainty that Lassandra lied when she tried to convince them Lei Magnus was trustworthy ... which was a strange thing, since she'd helped them devise a plan ... perhaps to win their trust? That had to be it. She had tried to convince them of a lie. Lei could not be trusted.

How did he know it was a lie again?

"Uncle, we're ready," Memphis said, jarring him from his thoughts. "I hope father's watching, he'll be so proud. I'm going to ace this, uncle!"

Milgazia himself was a liar too, he remembered.

While he himself stayed took to the air in true form, the elves fanned out on the mountain opposite of Lei Magnus. Their armors separated from them, taking on serpentine forms. Only thanks to the thick magic of Ragradia would it be possible to control them at such a range.

The idea was that Xelloss and Filia would spring ahead with fusion magic shield to guard their frontal fighter, Lyos. Dragons, elves and Sailoon chimeras would gather around, but only to give the illusion they tried to drive Lei back into the mountain. Milina would be in the perimeter of the seal's hole, hiding in magical distortions. Lei would avoid going back in and they would leave him an escape route that would send him straight at Milina, who was ready with her own fusion magic. If she disabled him long enough to get the armors on, they'd have him.

As if it would be so simple.

Lyos was meant to sneak up, but the moment he stepped out of the temple, rain clustered around him. Not only that, but the river seeped out of its banks and snow turned to streams all flowing at him. Within a minute, Lyos has the entire landscape pointing out his presence.

Lei saw them at the same time Milgazia saw him.

The human looked so small on that slope, only set apart by his movement. One step at a time, he did not even fly. If not for Milgazia's ability to sense devils, he would have believed him harmless. He wasn't. The power of Shabranigdu was so intense that every across the valley it stung through the flow.

The power filled up with blood lust. If any human existed behind this, he surely had drowned in the malice his devil side. Milgazia didn't doubt anymore.

Before Lei could attack, Lyos shot across the valley. The element of surprise gone, he played it off as a rabid frontal attack.

Milgazia turned away, unable to follow the speed of the battle. There was no telling the side effects of this battle between chimeras, so he had to get the elves away. Though he should focus on that, he couldn't help but look back.

Fusion bore a hole in the chaos of the blue and red magic, a solid nothing that obstructed Lei's sight. Right after that, an explosion thundered through the mountains, followed by a red circular wave from the core of the battle. A white light, Milina, shot away from it.

Though he couldn't see the humans, only the currents of energy, the core of devil power was nowhere near the entrance at this point. In fact, it felt like gearing up for another wave. The plan had failed within half a minute.

Lei's power flared out into five directions. Raw variations of the Drag Slave, yet far more potent and concentration. Their mere passing melted the rocks.

Time didn't slow down very often for him, but amidst this chaos came an unusual opportunity.

Xelloss shifted erratically into view, too blind on the astral plane to navigate the area without physical eyes. He was maybe a kilometer away, speeding nearer.

Milgazia hesitated as a thought got hold on him : if he filled this area with magic right now, Xelloss would be blinded. He might die when hit by one of the errant power, or at least be hurt enough that the dragons could finish it off. So what if the gods used him for a plan?

Xelloss deserved to die.

Milgazia hardly took a conscious decision. In dragon tongue, he cast an old haze spell. A thin, golden fog filled the area all around him. To the holy it meant nothing, but Xelloss slowed down in confusion. Then their eyes locked, and Milgazia was certain he felt Xelloss's wrath across hundreds of meters.

One of the red power surge spiraled towards Xelloss, but before it struck, Filia flew in from above. Within seconds her magic merged with Xelloss's darkness. On their shield, the red power scattered as if the wind blew it aside. It hadn't been fully neutralized, merely scattered.

All that now came straight at Milgazia. He turned and fled, but the heat melted his wing membrane before he was even hit. He fell.

Right then the far away fusion shield disintegrated and Filia in dragon form shot towards him with uncanny speed.

"Transform or you'll be too heavy!"

He did so just in time for Filia to scoop below him with a pillow spell. It softened his otherwise lethal landing on her back, but didn't stop her descent. She'd gone too low, scraping across the mountainside until her shoulder hit a rock. Blood sprayed over his face. He clenched her mane, almost thrown off by the impact.

Above them the energy passed over with singing heat, but a shield of cold surrounded Filia.

In her descent, she tore a few meters across the ground before she hooked her claws into rocks. After grinding to a halt, she lay there breathing for a few seconds.

Time's flow returned to normal, or close to it, as Milgazia realized the enormous foolishness of his actions. He should have gotten away when he could, Xelloss probably could take a Drag Slave. This shouldn't have happened.

"I'm going to transform now," Filia said. "Please step off before you hurt yourself more."

He dropped between her neck and wings. A sharp pain shot up through his legs, causing him to buckle forward and almost slide down the slope. Filia steadied him with an arm, then transformed.

When she reappeared as a human, her wounds were closed. Though it didn't normally happen with such young dragons, transformative restoration wasn't unheard of. The lack of spell _was_. No words either for healing, for the pillow spell or the cold shield.

No time to fret over that, because between the red flares he saw a tiny figure. They'd landed at the foot of the mountain where Lei stood, diagonal to the exit he'd carved. All his power fixated on them — he meant to take out the fusion warriors.

"It's worth attacking those two!" the Sage of Siephied called from somewhere below the valley. Milgazia couldn't see her, yet her voice sounded so close ...

Fortunately Lei did not listen to her, but it solidified Milgazia's beliefs of Lassandra's ulterior motives.

Lei moved further down the slope, not in their direction but straight down. Filia relaxed a little and knelt at Milgazia's side, hooking an arm below his back to help him sit up.

Now Xelloss didn't need to mind Filia anymore, he lost all restraint. Out came the devil Milgazia had seen but a few times during the Devil's Descent War.

A nonstop barrage of black magic rained down on Lei Magnus. Lyos joined the fight with equal rage.

The only reason the devil and the knight didn't get into each others way was the quality of their self direction. It wasn't truly cooperation, merely minding another entity on the battlefield. Lei had to shield on two sides with power he couldn't fully control. They herded him up the mountain, towards Milina.

Flares of darkness began to surround the angel, merging with her power into greater wings. First it encircled her, but at they opened all of Lei's attacks scattered on them. No backdraft, no explosion, no dissolving of her own force, no redirection. Her shield was absolute. In Sailoon, only a hand full of Sailoon soldiers had gotten close to this speed and potency; they were the ones who had gotten away from the recruitment efforts. However, Milina lacked direction. Her partner wasn't even on the same level of existence and if she needed a change in purpose, she had to explain with words.

So it was that Lei found a hole in her barrier. He didn't fly, but he took a powered leap off the mountain and caused an avalanche in the process. The dust hid him visually; with the distorted astral plane he'd be hard to see the other way as well. Milina and Xelloss hesitated to follow, but Lyos flew right after him. Xelloss stopped projecting, Milina followed shortly.

Milgazia couldn't see anymore, nor hear anything over the rubble. A silence followed that only allowed him to worry. Were the Zenaffa armors till operational? Filia continued her shield, her entire pose tense.

A Drag Slave sized explosion erupted from the foot of the mountain, throwing back Lyos. Milina appeared to catch him.

Lei Magnus came up the mountain, using an earth-moving spell not unlike Milgazia's own. Lyos stayed in the air, brandishing his sword as the waters rose up. Whatever he screamed drowned out in the noise of attacks, rushing waters and grinding rocks.

Lei conjured up a ruby blade, but Lyos laid the first blow. Lei blocked only barely, the clash of blades burning power in all directions. The ground shook with power, Milgazia couldn't tell whether it was Lei's shield of Lyos's force. The clouds grew thicker above them and rain fell, but never hit the two fighters.

Lei Magnus parried Lyos off, lost his footing, then Xelloss attacked in cone form. That almost cost Lei a leg, then he had to ward of Milina's holy blade.

Something had changed about Lyos. Lei tried indirect spells on him, sleep, sensory decay, but he broke through them all. The same organic spells had gotten the better of him when the dragons had used them.

Whatever he deflected came their way, but Filia poured all her energy in the shield.

"Can they do it without you and Xelloss's fusion?" Milgazia asked.

"I'm sure they can," she said with the confidence of a young dragon. "We landed the first blow."

This made no real tactical distinction since the first blow was rendered moot. He didn't point this out to her, though.

Having little else to do, Milgazia let his fangs grow and his draconic vocal chords thicken until he could roar. The sound carried, and though he couldn't see the elves from here, soon the silver Zenaffa shot by them like fish in a river. They'd been waiting, thank goodness.

Just as the armors converged around Lei Magnus, Milina aimed a triple attack from her hands and wings. Lei had to divert his power to shield against her only for his attack to dissolve into the flow. Fusion magic bore through his defense, carving a way for the Zenaffa.

Milgazia couldn't see more as Milina's wings expanded to tint all the flow with light, blinding Lei and everyone else. It did not hurt his eyes, but Lei Magnus screamed.

When Milina withdrew, Lei was on his knees. The white armor encased his chest, wrapped strings renched his hands shut. Two thin straps crossed before his eyes.

It was over.

Now the immediate fear was up, adrenaline receded and Milgazia became intricately aware of his pain. Clenching his hands, he resolved to wait till a healer arrived.

This happened sooner than expected. Filia dropped her shield and laid her hands over his legs.

" _Oh lord of holy waters, in flow with the waves, grant thy blessing and mercy upon this soul. Healing Hand_!"

His flesh knitted back together, the pain taken away with each stitch, a familiar sensation. Until Ragradia's demise, this had been the prime healing spell amongst the northern dragons.

"How did you know that spell?" he muttered.

"No time to explain!" She stood and offered her hand, which he took. "Get on my back, I'll finish healing you once we are are in the temple."

Without waiting for an answer, she transformed again. As full dragon, scooped up Milgazia and held him aside of her neck.

"I ... eh ... are you sure?" Riding another dragon felt wrong, somehow. Dragons were not pack animals, especially not for each other.

"It'll be alright as long as you keep your weight light. Do you have enough magic for that?"

"I do," he said, taking hold of her hair again. That she didn't mind the potential offense made it easier.

Filia took off as soon as he sat. Holding on with his better hand, he ducked close to her neck to keep the wind out of his face, but didn't need to. Filia raised a small shield to lessen the wind's impact.

"You know a lot of magic that is from before your time. How?" he asked.

She looked back with one eye, her ears a little flat against her neck; the eastern golden's sign of hesitation.

"What would you do if Aqualord Ragradia were revived?" Filia asked.

He must have misheard. Filia ul Copt wasn't the sort of dragon to jest about such holy matters. Maybe she'd scorn, but not jest.

She repeated the question, this time a little louder.

"I would offer him my service again," he said after some thought.

"Then offer it by not telling anyone that I just healed you like this. Lord Milgazia, swear it."

"I will swear, but only if you answer me one question. Did you merely imply, or does he live again?"

"In a way. She is safe with the Knight of Siephied," Filia said. "She did not come back to Kataart because in her weakened state, Lei Shabranigdu would try to kill her."

"We would have protected her ... "

She chuckled for some reason. " _They_ don't think you'd have done it right."

"Back?"

The chill up their spine betrayed Xelloss before he spoke.

"Miss Filia, that was to be a secret," he said just before he projected his human form.

Filia scowled at him. "I am not the keeper of your secrets. Lord Milgazia deserves an explanation about this and now we're on that, I deserve to know more as well."

Milgazia wouldn't learn anything new, because they took off in a subdued variant of their usual bickering. Filia's spitfire wasn't in it, her voice stayed low.

What was played here? Was someone as flippant as Filia really involved in such a grand scheme that reviving gods was part of the deal? Was that even possible?

To see the Aqualord again was something Milgazia dreamed of, but didn't ever fantasize about. Impossible hopes only tore one down.

 _If_ Aqualord Ragradia lived again, they could restore the dragon tribe to its former glory. This time, it would be better. One of the last things Aqualord Ragradia had told him was of his regret that he'd waited so long in intervening with the humans war.

Azonge had ideas about closer ties to the human realm, while Ospirias bordered on heresy with suggestions everything would be easier if they ruled the world. While the latter was ludicrous, Azonge might have been on to something. If Ragradia returned, all could change.

"Here, I'll share this much," Xelloss said, appearing before Milgazia all of a sudden. Too close, leaning in with one eye open. Milgazia nearly lost his grip. "Whatever zealous vision you're having, it'd be better to give it up. You wouldn't be the first dragon to be let down by their gods, right, miss Filia?"

"Not now," she growled.

"Oh?" Xelloss drew back, walked across her neck to lean over her head. "Not now? Picky about timing when you just endangered our plan just to save him?"

"I couldn't just let him die," Filia said.

"Oh, you could. All it required was for you to not do anything."

"To enable your vital needs of being a childish prick? I thought it I could take a small detour to _save a life_. If we hadn't lost fusion magic it wouldn't have been a big problem."

"Not _that_ life."

Beat. Filia's mouth dropped.

"I don't believe it. You're _still_ angry about his bad jokes? Sounds like you have the bigger problem here!"

"May I remind you that you hate his jokes almost as much as I do?"

"You may and I won't deny it, you rotting pile of manure, but I don't blame lord Milgazia for this! It's not his fault nobody ever dared to tell him how boring he is and it's not like he chose to be that way. Above that, because they are _just bad jokes_. I wouldn't let him die over that."

"Well, _I_ didn't choose to be hate him. That is a natural consequence of our opposing natures as boring and fun."

"Ha! You? Fun? Only to yourself. You're exactly like lord Milgazia in that respect. Nobody but you thinks it is funny."

"That is my intention, unlike Milgazia," he sneered, but it didn't sound as smooth and controlled as before. Milgazia wished he'd be better at reading human tones.

"There you go, derailing the topic again," Filia hissed. "With how much your petty emotions get in the way, I think _you_ need a rezast spell to do some housecleaning yourself."

Xelloss dropped his staff on the top of her head. "Oops, how clumsy of me."

Filia growled — she didn't seem hurt badly, but it still was pain.

"If that's all you can do in reply, that means I won," Filia declared. "You didn't even wait for a wall or door to present itself, despite how close we are to the sanctuary!"

Indeed, she already made the motion to land. Milgazia hadn't even noticed the ruins, he'd been too occupied with the surrealism of the dragon slayer bickering with a dragon.

About his life and apparently, his sense of humor.

"My jokes are bad?" Milgazia asked, but they didn't hear him.

**· · · · · · ·**

The armies retreated back into the sanctuary. A few of the elected elves had been injured and a dragon had died while carrying them to safety. Milgazia should have been there to help, not pursue unrealistic vengeance plans. Filia finished healing him before moving on to others.

He started counting his steps as he walked through the corridors. Though they had victory, it was a quiet, pained victory. The devil chimera's presence put a strain on everyone's already fragile peace. More than one begged that they might leave, but where to? All around, the remainders of the devil armies waited. There was no safe exit. They'd have to wait until teleportation would be possible again.

Now all this had gone by, he had to tell Memphis something.

Still, he found distractions. It had come out that the angel was friends with a host of Shabranigdu who resided in hell. Through the Ancient's hell gem, he'd spoke a few things that ... heavily implied a romantic interest. The connection between fusion magic and that rekindled rumors about Filia and Xelloss. Though he shouldn't care, Milgazia sought out Azonge to talk about that.

Some part of him hoped Memphis would find out on her own.

By the time he found his friend (the still living one), he hadn't even made up an excuse why it was important.

Azonge and Ospirias were, again, arguing.

"I do believe she is on our side," Azonge said. "At the very least, she has a conscience and standards."

"It may be she once was a pure soul and such vestiges remain," Ospirias said. "Having fallen into a forbidden relationship with a devil is exactly the thing that would corrupt someone."

"We don't know whether they are involved," Azonge said. "There are a lot rumors, but none confirmed. A dragon with scrying power saw them on a couch under a blanket, but given the circumstances that could be something else entirely."

"What circumstances?" Milgazia asked.

Azonge cast Milgazia a strange look and said, "Ehm, we'll cover that later, you wouldn't believe me if I said so. Anyway, that angel says the Sage wants to talk to Lei Magnus as soon as possible."

"No," Milgazia blurted out. "She encouraged him to attack me and Filia ul Copt."

"Actually, that sounds very interesting," Xelloss said as he shifted in. "Let's have those speak."

Nobody wanted to say no to this devil.

Milgazia arranged for the meeting by informing the outer guards. Xelloss followed him around, his fake smile on his face the entire time. Xelloss needed to die.

What he wanted for Lei Magnus he wasn't sure though. Old human tales told of the great sage Lei Magnus, but Milgazia had never paid attention to such things. Humans greatness was mediocrity for dragons. You might notice it if the fireworks were loud enough, but it still was gone and meaningless so soon. As such, he had no idea who he was.

Lei Magnus had been led into the greatest hall, where Ragradia's statue stood. Below this he looked so small.

He did not resist the Zenaffa armors. Milina sat opposite of him, on the kiln near the entrance. She held a relaxed pose, legs crossed and hands cradling the hell gem. However, her wings were wide out, its lower feathers passing over the entrance. Milgazia ducked to avoid touching them.

Xelloss followed after him, then came Leyunso. Milgazia didn't like going first, but he had to bypass the inner barrier they'd raised.

Now seeing Lei Magnus close for the first time, Milgazia was unimpressed. The man bore none of the marks of greatness. He wore wide robes with excessive shoulder pads, the human choice of those looking to impress. Yet his pose had nothing intimidating or grand. His face was turned down and hands hands laced before his knees.

"Lei Magnus, this woman wants to speak to you," he said. With that, he stepped back. Not too far, he wanted to hear.

Lassandra would have hunched down, but Lei stood up before she could.

"Who are you?" he asked, solid red eyes narrowed at her. Someone had apparently considered the blinding pointless.

"My name matters."

"I'm still curious," he said after hesitating.

She shrugged, whatever that meant.

"She offers you an alliance," Xelloss said.

"Why does she not speak for herself?" Lei asked.

"That is a secret, but one I assure you may work in your favor once the allegiance exists."

"Why would you?" Lei asked her directly.

"I'm absolutely not in a need for allies," Lassandra said. "I am not curious about your concerning the three retainers."

"I could use support and they were there. Would the dragons have listened if I offered allegiance, hmm?" Lei asked.

"Probably," Xelloss said. "As Shabranigdu, you would have no reason at all to reject your own troops, or be rejected by them. You see, the dragons are in a need for allies themselves, seeing as their gods have been blinded. Fortunately, we beat them to that idea by making it clear you won't be their ally for real."

"How would you know?" Lei asked.

"Ever heard of the Sage of Siephied?" Lassandra asked.

Lei tensed up, the armors tightened around him. "I should have asked _what_ you are."

Lassandra shrugged again.

"I've heard of the Knight of Siephied. What does being a Sage mean?" Lei asked.

"Sages hold memories of the gods. They are chimeras of godly mind and mortal soul," Milgazia said, unable to keep his curiosity to him. Something was wrong with the Sage of Siephied, he wanted to know more.

Lei Magnus shook his head. "No ... this isn't a chimera that I'm looking at. Nobody knows chimeras the way I do, I've spent so much time being one. The Lei Magnus of the past would be appalled by me, and Shabranigdu is appalled right now. A thousand years on ice is a lot of time to think. If you are whom I suspected, you must have had so much more time. Did you ever get a choice about what you are?"

"I'm not," Lassandra said.

Lei Magnus laughed. " _She_ did this, didn't she? _She_ spit you back into the world."

"Did she do as I wish without caring what I wanted?" Lassandra asked, a strange smile on her.

"Am I really meeting Siephied?"

"Am I really meeting Shabranigdu?"

"A form of him if we get into semantics, just as with you." Lei leaned back against the wall, sitting down again. She followed his example.

"I'm beginning to guess _She_ did something to your ability to speak. Once, you said the power to keep followers and take on small forms was so useful, since faith makes for excellent food. In retrospect, that's probably why you got the upper hand during our battle. Just enough to divide me. Or him. Either's true at this point."

Lassandra gave him a big grin. "Wouldn't you know all about the benefits of gaining followers by now?"

"That's why we went for Ragradia's power. I figured it out where you got so much food to tilt the tides. And now, here you are, unable to breed faith," Lei said, matching her grin.

"My my," Xelloss said. "You caught on to her curse quickly."

"The Lord of Nightmares has Her whims, doesn't she? It's almost predictable she'd do something like this."

Xelloss and Lassandra exchanged a look, then they whispered so softly that Milgazia couldn't hear. Milina approached, adding in on the quiet conversation.

"Are you aware of the whims of the Lord of Nightmares? How so?" Lassandra asked after a minute or so, leaned forward a little.

"Sharing experiences, you two?" Lei asked, nodding at Xelloss and Lassandra. "So did I. Granted, it was less of a mutual thing than with you. I thought I was leading the one I spoke to along, only to realize they could eat my emotions. They were onto me soon."

"They?" Xelloss asked. "Who ever could you have spoken to?"

If Lei's smile meant anything, Milgazia could not tell, but he recognized the kind of waiting prowl. Dragons with a carnivorous inclination often tested patience by staring and baiting. Some humans did it too, one of the few things Milgazia could read on their body language.

"The other group who is in on this scheme explained me what they plan when they tried to recruit me," Lei Magnus said.

Xelloss's eyes flew open. "You know who they are? Tell us!"

Even Lassandra, otherwise calm to absurd levels, jerked up.

Lei shook his head. "You'd know where to look when I'd rather look there myself without being disturbed. Let's say for now that she had a lot of spite for the Lord of Nightmares."

The blood lust returned to Xelloss, sharp even in its beginning stages. "If you and who ever this person is seek to rebel against Her, you will fail. Only a fool would stand against the Lord of Nightmares. I'd tell you to ask the last one to try, but he's gone by her will."

"You've grown a tongue since I last met you, beast priest. And more. You won't say her name, intending to protect her maybe? Her name is Lina Inverse, and last time I caught a glimpse of her, she had my talismen. Didn't I give those to you?"

Xelloss waved his finger. "Ah ah, I sold them fair and square," Xelloss hummed.

"And never cared to take them back from the most powerful human?"

"Why would I need to resort to petty thievery, even if I happened to be a previous owner?"

"Why would a dragon slayer, prime general of my war, care for such law?" Lei said. "Or maybe I should call it Shabranigdu's war."

"You may be surprised by the ways I have evolved in the past millennium, lord Lei."

"Devils have no business evolving."

"Yet here you are, lord Lei Magnus, neither human nor devil truly." Xelloss made a broad hand wave at him, as if presenting evidence.

"You really did change, Xellos. Not in a useful way," Lei said.

"I beg to disagree." Xelloss eyes opened, blood lust now at its peak. "I rather enjoy being what I am now, and that is all the use I ever needed. The Lord of Nightmares agrees more than you could appreciate."

"I don't care to appreciate Her. Now," he said, leaning towards Lassandra. "Let's get back to our topic. What would you envision with me joining you? Or maybe you should tell me what's up with your voice, and why I shouldn't fear it."

She pulled at Xelloss's cloak. "Pen. Paper."

Xelloss handed it to her.

She wrote something and handed it back. "Transcribe or it will work as with my words."

After having done so, Xelloss handed the new paper to Lei Magnus. He read it, then tossed it into the nearby canal.

"I have no guarantee for that. Look at him," he said, nodding at Xelloss. "I don't believe it's worth attacking him, even if I know he holds a barrier that encases me. Even as I go over hypothetical escape scenarios and put him in a vital spot, I can't take it serious. He is not worth attacking. No, I cannot trust, Siephied. Not with that power. I've already spent too much time dealing with Shabranigdu's need to end the world. I don't want to exchange that for fearing you, even if I'd get better control out of it. I want freedom."

"Don't we all?" Xelloss said.

"Not all," Milina muttered.

"Your Luke is an unfortunate case," Lei said. "Ironically, he owes his superior control exactly to his bond to you. Love for anything tears to the core of a the purest devil of all. It doesn't matter what kind of love. Obsession, crush, devotion. Even extreme love for oneself can bear down ... Lezo can tell you about that."

"For someone unwilling to help us or form an alliance, you talk an awful lot," Milina said.

"A thousand years and I still have some very human needs left. Sometimes we just have to talk with others."

Lassandra stood up and walked away without another word. Xelloss closed his eyes and stopped projecting. Only Milina stayed for a moment.

"Can you at least tell me to what extent Shabranigdu influences his hosts?" she asked.

"It depends on the kind of host he has," he said. "I'm sorry, I can't help you with Luke. Maybe, if I die, I'll see him in hell."

She sighed. "I don't know whether I'd like that."

Keeping her wings wide, she walked backward to her former spot. "Milgazia, don't stay. There's no use talking to him."

"Actually, I can be very useful. That black skinned woman isn't the Sage of Siephied. She is Siephied reincarnated," Lei told him. "It is law in the world none can believe any of her claims because our Mother, the Lord of Nightmares, is funny like that. Do with that knowledge what you want."

Milgazia struggled for words. He found some in an old lecture long ago, when devils still tried tempting young dragons.

"I have no mind for such low brow tactics," he said, as he'd been taught and had taught others.

He left the hall without looking back, trying to tear his mind from all the strange things he'd heard today.

Right, Memphis. He still needed to tell Memphis. It was no easier now than before, but it would give him focus.

He need not have bothered. When he found Memphis in the death ward, Sylphiel was with her. Memphis leaned into her embrace, her shoulders shaking as she restrained her cries.

"I know how it feels," Sylphiel said. "There's no shame in crying, go on."

Between sniffing, Memphis managed to say, "I can't now ... supposed to be a leader. I'm the best Zenaffa wielder. I can't now. Father wouldn't ... be proud ..."

The kind of gestures that came naturally to Sylphiel were strange to him.

He turned around, walked away, didn't know anything to do. For the first time in his life, this bothered him. He was too old to relearn his place in this world, where he was smaller and weaker than he'd realized even during the War of the Devils's Descent.

**· · · · · · ·**


	24. Val's False

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a kinda gross scene near the end, proceed with caution.

 

**· · · · · · ·**

Two craters adorned Zoana : the larger curtsy of a rampaging golem, the smaller the result of Lina Inverse's Drag Slave. By no means had either destroyed the kingdom, though the princess liked to claim such when explaining its impoverished state. In reality, that had more to do with poor reconstruction efforts and the hesitation of surrounding nations to trade.

A common saying in Zoana was that vengeance was futile, which was Martina's explanation for Lina attending her wedding, but below the cover of civility it was about the citizens not disposing of their shaky royalty and could the other states please stop holding a grudge?

He had to agree insofar that vengeance quests were futile in the grand scheme of things. Righteous anger had far greater crimes to be directed at.

Too bad Valgarv still had no idea how to go about that. Volphied was supposed to be here to help him, but she wasn't because ... it was ridiculous. She'd avoided a world of danger for seven years, just to lose her connection on a random chance.

In dreams he felt he was closer to her. She must still exist far away in the Black World, so he tried dreaming up worlds for her to appear in. He saw her world, where she resided in the depths of space, traveled past the stars and nebula, only to be drawn back to Zoana's ramshackle capital.

He woke from the cooing of a dove.

Squinting against the light, he turned over and kicked the blankets off the bed. In doing so, he accidentally kicked the bedpost to pieces. This place wasn't a palace, thought the Zoana royals pretending it was. Everything was small and fragile, though that might also be that he slept in adult form lately.

Taking care not to break the patched balcony door, he let the dove in. He should be able to absorb it and gain its knowledge that way, but he couldn't even do _that_. It was but an failing replica of the real thing.

The dove landed on a low cabinet, where it spun out into the ghostly form of Volphied. Only her form, for her essence was missing. It made for a functional spy, but nothing more.

"Speak," he commanded.

"The war in the Kataart Mountains has resulted in the release of Lei Magnus, who has become a chimera of human and astral. He wishes to live. Upon discovering this, the dragons and the devils banded together to contain him. They sealed him in Zenaffa armors," she said, her voice pleasant and unfit for this kind of news. Had she been Volphied, he knew she wouldn't have stuck this tone.

"Who are present?" he asked, no longer looking at it.

"Dragons from all corners of the earth were present, but Rangort's monks were getting ready to evacuate around the time I spied. They chose to leave some of their soldiers behind. The leader of the wind dragons spoke of departing and taking his troops along. Siephied's human rebirth is present. Lyos is outer guard for Lei Magnus. Milina is inner guard of Lei Magnus. Filia Ul Copt remains to treat the injured. The three retainers remain at a distance to avoid Lei's command. The density of Ragradia's magic is in chaos, rendering teleportation navigation impossible. It appears to congregate around Lyos, but he cannot yet merge with it."

Most of that was not a problem, except for Lei Magnus being free.

Valgarv slammed his fist on the table, which cracked. His plate clattered on the ground and he kicked it away.

He'd never been a strategist, that was Garv's forte. Truth be said, he couldn't even recall what he was supposed to _do_ with Lei Magnus. When Volphied's vessel had seen been in this world, she had gone around the world searching for useful assets, which had led her to Lei Magnus. At the time she couldn't contact him, and by the time Val had been near Volphied's vessel was already dead.

Talking to Lei had been such a hassle. Giving Jillas the idea to practice with his cannons in a valley near enough, without it being suspicious. Sneaking away, yet getting caught by devils in the process. All for nothing : even after filtering away Shabranigdu's influence, the man had been dismissive of Valgarv's ideals.

Granted, he wasn't sure he had said the right things. Volphied had meant to pull a spiel, but with her gone all he'd managed was to play out a projection of her into the mountain. He wasn't even sure what the projection had recited.

Maybe he could get to Kataart and try personally talking to him, or infecting him, or maybe get to the other two hosts somehow. As long as he avoided Siephied's rebirth and her dreadful power, it would be fine. However, getting to the sleeping hosts would be his better option. Dealing with mindless fetuses was easier than with a now chimerized Lei Magnus and all his opinions and needs. But ...

The golden dragons were in Kataart. Filia, Xelloss and Claire's power were. He wanted to set them right.

Normally he'd have gone with whatever impulse came first, but either action required him to travel thousands of miles. After half an hour debating with himself what was more important, he got up with the decision to stay. Some of those to be corrected were here, after all.

Though the sun had risen, the mansion was quiet. What few servants lived knew they could slack off because the royal couple stayed in bed long. Valgarv wandered to Claire's room, whom he could sense now she lay under his hollow all the time.

Cracking the door open, he found her as expected. Her physical body slept in child form, but her astral body was awake and looked nothing like a living thing. Just raw patterns of blue.

He let her see his astral body ever since her realization, but only sporadically. It threw her off if she wasn't sure who he was and so far she had not told Luna.

"Are you awake, little god?" he asked.

The covers stirred and she drew in energy from the surrounding so she could grow, but he didn't let her. Her head peeked from below the covers, her eyes glowing like a cat's.

"I'm not a god yet. We need another word for what I'll be, assuming you will let me be anything."

He closed the door behind him. "Oh, don't worry. You will be, but I can't promise for how long."

"Longer than Rangort will stay alive?"

"Maybe a little." He sat down on the bed's edge. "You will have to die, though."

"We'll see what you mean with that. Can you at least let me receive information from Lyos? If you can operate that hollow that well, information access should be possible. Or maybe you are that hollow without really controlling it."

He scoffed. "Don't underestimate my ability, little god. It's my choice not to let you. You'll be reborn, don't worry. Lyos does not need you right now."

Likewise, Valgarv didn't need her interesting in talking, but thankfully she said nothing else.

He stayed with her in silence, knowing his presence unnerved her. He had to keep a hold on her. Over breakfast in Wizer's house, Claire had randomly decided to develop humility. Just like that, out of the blue. Wanted to tell everything to everyone because of some absurd notion of this _improving_ things.

There was a time for dramatic revelations. Breakfast wasn't it.

Especially not if that involved spilling the beans to a prickly Luna Inverse, who might just use her talisman to talk to her little sister. Maybe she couldn't figure _that_ out, but he wasn't about to take the risk. The last thing he wanted was the apostle of chaos knowing he existed, because once she set her mind to things, chaos would help Inverse could not be controlled.

His handle on Claire was clear, though. Claire _had_ to ensure the lives of people went on as long as possible, and Val was the perfect innocent victim to be protected. No victim was closer to her than Val was.

Volphied had devised the Val Ul Copt program as a neurological placeholder operating on a purely physical level. It had the body to produce emotions for the devils and gods to read, but did not exist engraved on the soul. This necessitated the astral hollow around him, which made him stand out but could be chalked up to Lina Inverse's void and creation magic going wrong.

Twice he'd been thrown off balance, but by now he had figured out how to stabilize himself. No more errors like the entire Claire Bible-induced memory mishap. Val could be switched on and off at need again. Nobody needed to know Val wasn't an individual.

Elsewhere in the mansion, Luna Inverse woke up. Valgarv switched on Val.

**· · · · · · ·**

That morning, Claire hurried through her food without speaking to him, which had become her new routine. Val didn't like it, but he did understand why.

To his surprise, instead of returning to her room she went outside. Glad for at least that much change, he followed her. Not that he wouldn't have gone after her otherwise.

"Where are you off to?" he asked.

"Luna wants to build a beacon so Filia with Lyos can teleport here in case of emergency. Since you won't even let me peak outside your hollow, I have to be close to help her."

The way she said _won't even let_ hurt, as if she accused him. Yes, he didn't let her, didn't want to but ... it wasn't important to think about. Only that he did not let her. They could still play. She thought Valgarv was a different person and she should be angry at _that_ version.

The "gardens" of Zoana were a technical concept. The mansion lay at the edge of a crater since Martina had insisted to rebuild as close to the original locations possible. The crater itself had overgrown with forest and had been dubbed Modernized Royal Gardens by Martina.

At the center of this forest, Luna had cleared a meadow. There she formed a six pointed circle with items she'd embedded with holy magic. Well, she did the embedding anyway. Dirgear, Martina, Zangulus and a few nameless citizens, rounded up by Luna no doubt, did all the physical work.

Val wasn't sure what he had to do. Stay close to Claire, but what else? Hmm, this was about saving his mother, right?

"I can help!" Val said to Luna, who bent over a random rock. He'd have liked to _see_ what she could do astrally, but even if he had better sight, the clutter of wings and gore blocked him.

"Like hell I'll let you near this," Luna said. She snapped a crack of lightning from her fingers, Val just barely jumped out of the way.

Claire sat down opposite of Luna and quietly gave her new directions, sometimes pointing. Val kept the hollow at a wide angle, so the flow didn't carry away any messages, and his physical body at a distance from the work grounds. Luna wasn't nice.

Okay, so Claire wasn't nice either. She didn't help cause she felt sorry for anyone, but because she had to. It was all an accident that she did this, but while Luna did care for people, she was really mean about it. It confused Val, because he couldn't quite say who was the worst here.

"Ponytail, place those blessed rocks closer to the center!" Luna commanded Zangulus, once she'd finished the rock. "Oatmealgusto, you go get that tree upright."

"It's Zoamelgustar!" the demon shrieked.

"Oatmealgusto," Luna said, flicking him against the tree. "Tree, up, now."

The makeshift demon, or whatever he was, scampered up the tree. Considering he was a tiny sand colored humanoid without any features, not even fingernails, that was a huge accomplishment. Especially with a meter tall mask on its face.

"Must you do that?" Claire asked Luna. "Hurting people is not the only way to get them to do what you want."

"It's the easiest way," Luna said as she grabbed the next item, a gargoyle she'd broken off somewhere.

"So you acknowledge there are other ways. You were able to go about your day just fine without torture in Orun's village," Claire said.

"Must you always spy on people? That's pretty sick in its own right," Luna said.

"Would you cut out your eyes because blind people exist?"

"Yeah yeah. Whatever. At the time, I _thought_ I needed Orun's cooperation. Not so much the case here, is it?" She inclined her head at the miserable mortals around her. Martina swore vengeance under her breath, but dared not say it aloud.

Luna was evil. Val didn't want her near his mother, it was a bad combination because the Siephied Knight with the Siephied Channel. Filia could provide Luna with an uncountable stream of energy, which Luna would be able to use due to resonance. Unlike Lina, Luna didn't need spells to control what Filia summoned. He was sure Luna only wanted to help her for selfish reasons.

It'd been good when they fought. It had hurt Filia and he did not like that, but it'd been for the best.

He knew that right now and nothing else mattered, even if knowing scared him. He was going to hurt Filia a lot when he did not think of her as mother. Yet he could not _not_ want it.

Right as he thought that, Claire cast him a look that seemed to say _I know something is wrong, let me help_.

There was nothing to say.

**· · · · · · ·**

_He'd been wrong, she had not surrendered, she had wormed her way inside his mind. Somehow ... one ... should he not have died? Yet here he was ... she was. They were.  
_

_The Igdu never spoke to each other. Death Fog Ronrazigdu, Ruby Eye Shabranigdu, Chaotic Blue Norayigdu, those who remained of the devil kings, destroyers of worlds and speakers of nonsense. What was there to talk about?_

_Not so for the Phied, as Dugradigdu learned. Volphied and the others spoke, even theorized, albeit they had hollow words.  
_

_Tazuiphied, Zeniphied and Habriphied had won their battles, but led very different worlds. Zeniphied aside, Volphied heartily disapproved of what worlds they held. Yaephied and Alraphied were lost cases, according to her. She could not be Zeniphied, so she had decided that the best way to go was a world without gods and devils. Even in the worlds where their supreme deities both had been destroyed, there would be new devils and angels born, now unchecked. Something else had to be done.  
_

_She believed true victory for existence was to get rid of the system that the Lord of Nightmares had imposed upon them, and now she had merged with him, he believed it too. Whether she had convinced him or had always been inclined to doubt he couldn't tell, nor did he care.  
_

_Had he ever believed anything else before? The rhythm of war, of getting food ... he had lost track of his purpose to the Lord of Nightmares. He went out of his way to inflict as much suffering as possible, even if it did not aid his meaning, even if he reached his limit of feeding. War for the sake of war. She had gone along, enraptured in the battle. Had he destroyed her, or had she driven him too far? He couldn't tell, she couldn't tell._

_He had once thought that Volphied believed in the system of honor and ethics and compassion of her followers. How wrong he'd been. She had understood the necessity, but now she no longer needed to be fed or defended, their will did not matter anymore. It was all about them, Night Dragon and Dark Star. How alike they were, now._

_She wanted to remake the world, and for that, all of this had to be destroyed. Not to be given to the Void, but to spite Her. She would never be Whole again._

_After all, according to the Chaos Apostle, the Lord of Nightmares dreamed up new worlds anyway. He did not need to care for Her returning to her true form, just as she didn't care for freeing her children from their meaningless cycle._

**· · · · · · ·**

Someone shook him awake. Val almost lashed out, but realized who it was just in time. Claire stood aside the chair he'd fallen asleep in last evening. She had taken a young adult form, her hand still rested on his shoulder.

"Val, what were you dreaming of?"

"Why do you care?" he grumbled. He'd wanted to keep the dream, because in it he had absolute certainty of everything he did.

"I believe something is taking over you," she said. "Let me help you and we can fight him together."

"Don't bother." Val dropped back on the bed and tried to pull the sheets over his head, but she wouldn't let him.

"Yes, I will bother! I owe you my identity, without which I would have fallen apart during rebirth. Let me help you."

"So it's just about paying back debts cause Cone Thingy taught you that? If I'd known you'd be a creepy demigod I wouldn't have played with you," he snapped.

Claire took a step back, hesitant. "Xelloss did encourage in me to have personal values and I think they are useful ones. Is that a problem?"

"I just insulted you, don't you care!?"

She shrugged. "I've heard better insults during the Devil's Descent War."

Off course, she wasn't really a young woman.

_Neither am I._

"You've got Lyos anyway. I don't need you." He needed Volphied.

"I don't _have_ anyone. Lyos sticks with me because our power resonates."

"Get lost," he said.

"I'm not lost and will not be, but I think you are," she whispered. Though her voice had the monotone as ever, she might just feel sorrow for him. Perhaps even pity.

Right where he liked her to be.

Valgarv shut down the Val program and sat up. "Oh, you noticed me? And here I thought I had the kid down."

She frowned, confused at the wording, at the emotions she must have tasted from the child mode.

Let her think Val existed as a separate personality from him, that there was someone to save. It was a classic story : try to appeal to the _true, conveniently kinder self_ inside the tragic monster. One of these days he'd have her plead, then he'd reveal the truth.

"What do you want from us?" She asked this often. He made a point of giving a slightly different answer every time. _Don't you know? I bet you know. You know better than I do. You should know. You know why. Why do you think it is?_

He smirked, made a dismissive gesture. "You know it already."

As he stood up, she stepped back.

"I should want to kill you," she said sadly. "End this game."

"Off course you do, even though I'm not doing anything. You're a god, after all. You're all alike, you just get rid of what doesn't suit you," he said.

Without a word, she turned to leave. He shot up and slammed his arm past her, closing the door.

She froze. "Well. What do you want now?"

He leaned in from behind, encircling her with her arms — reveling in how he could hold and bend her. Then he switched Val back on.

"Claire?" Val held a little tighter, and she relaxed. "I'm sorry. I don't want to hurt you, please don't be afraid."

He couldn't say he'd never do it again. He knew he would. Filia would want him to be honest — it was wrong to keep secrets forever, he shouldn't let Claire believe he was separate from another. There was nothing to say though. Besides, he'd tell her eventually.

"Are you real?" The doubt in her emotions was far stronger than the sound of it in her voice.

"I'm real," he said. It wasn't even a lie. He knew what he had to do. "Don't worry, it'll be okay. I'll keep him away."

He didn't tel her go until she felt safe. For the rest of the day, he allowed her to keep that feeling.

**· · · · · · ·**

_"Night Dragon, do you know why the Lord of Nightmares has created the world as it is?" Almayce asked me. It's a hesitant question, one I know he's had for almost as long as I have. Should I tell him I know? Hmm, how about no. Omniscience perfected is not of his concern, it would only trouble things more._

_"I don't know. Maybe she was bored." It's not the answer he desires, especially not in such a callous tone. I'm expected to answer some transcendental about perfecting our world through trial.  
_

_Omniscience ... the one thing we cannot see is the Sea of Chaos, or Her, our Mother. I am aware and linked to all my siblings that have yet to die. Raiphied, Alraphied, Tazuiphied, Zeniphied. They're in no better shape than I am. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like, if we were as mortals are. They can obtain comfort from one another's presence. We feed on their miasma, but gain no strength from anything else._

_Then again, maybe not. It's such a nuisance. Sirius is just hurt himself by being compassionate, I can't stand to be around him. I should construct something more suitable next time._

_I wonder what's going on in Siephied's world, now that he is gone. I can't see a lot between those six remaining fragments. His world had this strange concept of astral plane and magic, and its devils could see the Sea of Chaos through it ..._

**· · · · · · ·**

One day and two 'visits' from Valgarv to Claire later, they sat on a hill as children. Luna still worked on the beacon, this time alone.

Claire and Val each had reeds to work on balls, but Claire's actual (and uninvited) job was to steer the local magic's balance so it could be reached even though Kataart's chaos. Two more days, they said. By then, Valgarv expected to have Claire willing to teleport him and her to Kataart. He wasn't sure what he'd do there, but it was better than sticking around.

"Is mom okay?" Val asked.

"She's alright. Most ill people have been healed by now, she's just helping those who have broken bones and things healing spells don't fix immediately. A bigger problem is the devils that keep getting close to Xelloss and Zelas. I'm having Lyos eat away all the emotions they shouldn't be having."

"Oh," he said. "Why?"

He knew why. It wasn't a big deal to him; being a chimera he knew devilhood didn't inherently make devils explode just for experiencing positive emotions. However, to the devil clan it indicated a traitor. It was why Garv had been unable to pretend to still be on Shabranigdu's life.

"Xelloss likes things, and so does Zelas," she said. "Worse though, Zelas worries in ways she shouldn't be able to."

"Can I see if I learn to use Luna's power?" he asked, finishing his ball.

"You really ought to give that back, Val."

"I will if I knew how to." That was a blatant lie, which he felt a little guilty about.

The look on her face almost matched how sad she felt about that. "I should have told Filia when I had the chance."

She set down her work, regretted without really feeling guilty, and he hated that.

He shut down Val and said, "You would have betrayed me if you did that."

"I can't betray whom I never owed allegiance to." That answer was too much like Xelloss.

Then Valgarv processed what he didn't think about as Val : Claire was in touch with Lyos. She shouldn't be.

Claire grinned as she put the final straws in her reed ball. She pushed it into itself, but it bounced right back into its old shape. "Did you know there's a structure to the way an empty space is upheld?"

As his fist clenched over his own reed, it broke to pieces. Then he turned Val back on, because exploding in rage right then and there wouldn't serve him. Luna was close.

**· · · · · · ·**

_Dugradigdu fell down as the night given life and body. I can't call the dark star enticing because I hate him, but I need him too._

_It didn't even hurt._

_I was there to greet him. How interesting he is, a chimera like I and Dugradigdu have become. Not only that, he is one of my dragons, feathered and black and mint. Even our wishes collide. The children Siephied dreamed up in my name. Excellent that one of them would come to meet me._

_It is with ease that he blends with us, and ... I am here. I finally understand what my brother never did realize. How powerful mortals are, who have lived so small and with such perpetual detail._

_Valgarv's hatred is small compared to mine, but it multiplies and spreads because he I we have so much more refinement. I want to escape my pain, he wants to escape the pain because of injustice, of knowing pain as having experienced it, as having fed on it, as having wanted to end it in others. There are so many ways to hate and love! He has faces and laws to hate, I have every fiber of the system. We agree it must end.  
_

_Who defines us, him, or us? Dugradigdu can't make sense out of most of it, he bends easily. Or have I bent to him? I never questioned things like this, I just wanted. Little mortal, what did you do to me? What have I done to you? It's symmetry, so it doesn't matter.  
_

_A ship in the cold black void, steered on the forces of light and gravity. Who is the one in control, the cold of space or the warmth of the ship?_

_We both decide there is no such simple absolution, bringing it all down with darkness and ...  
_

_White fire with a red sheen broke from the night, a little to the left._

_A red, skeletal dragon, burning and bleeding and malnourished.  
_

_This wasn't how Valgarv remembered merging with Volphied.  
_

_"I am so going to tell Filia that you're head over heels with Volphied," Luna said. "Maybe that'll rattle her out of her sick little crush."_

_What?_

_"Hi. I have a beacon with extra shiny flow balance and you have a bit of my power. Got some enforced sleep from Claire. Guess who is dreamwalking?"_

_Luna Inverse. She was here, in his mind._

_"Why are you here?" he snarled._

_As if to answer him, reeds grew into a sphere around them and he knew it as the system of the hollow._

_"Not seeing any Val," Luna said. "Just you. Huh ... I'm dying to know how you pulled off a fake personality so well that you fooled Xelloss for seven years. Bravo!"_

_From the other end, a blue light emerged, burning away the rest of the dark dream and the stars. Now only the two dragons remained in a scorching white space._

_"I would put it differently," the newcomer. He didn't recognize Claire by voice because she spoke like a dragon in language and voice, but the wings gave her away. In her claws, she held a dreamed up variant of a demonsblood talisman.  
_

_"You took our Ruby Eye talisman in the Claire Bible dimension, didn't you?" Claire asked. "I could see you with the rest of the Copt family in my maze, but your doves I cannot see. At least not without physical eyes."_

_"Hey, back on topic?" Luna asked. "You were wrong. There's no Val in here."_

_"I know. The plot is more important."_

_He had to get them out, now. Too bad he never learned anything about dream walking.  
_

_"Did you gamble on Dalphin or did you feed her hints?" Claire asked._

_Tapping into the Claire Bible was speaking to an automaton, but when she was in his dreams she could see even if he didn't let her. She riffled through the details, seeking the answer to his plan. If it hadn't been so slow, she'd have known already.  
_

_Why was it slow ... Oh. Luna. Claire had come on Luna's power, who was a relative newcomer at dreamwalking._

_The moment Valgarv focused his anger on her, she braced, but the response was not what he expected._

_"MY ESTEEMED SELF IS TERRIFIED OF YOUR POTENTIAL AND WOULD LIKE YOU VERY CESSATED RIGHT NOW!" a deep voices bore from the red skies that hadn't been there a second ago._

_A giant, scorching plush mockery of Luna's red dragon hovered above them, illuminated from behind by the sun breaking through the clouds. It burned white, regrowing what it lost only to set along elsewhere. Through the burn patches, he could see flesh and blood, yet it had button eyes and sparkles on its tail._

_"Are you mocking me?" snarled at Luna. "What the hell is that?"_

_Luna groaned. "It's my embarrassing inner voice or something. Blame Filia for how it looks."_

_"That's beyond embarrassing. Of all the gods I've heard about, you're by far the biggest disgrace."_

_"Says the guy who practically has a chorus singing ME ME ME ME. At least I know the world isn't about me." She looked around. "Aww, I'd hoped that chorus would manifest. Maybe you're more into laments? Wails? River dance?"_

_"Shut up! You don't know who you're mocking. I am the only one who really understands how flawed this world is, the only one who can fix it."_

_"If you need to say that, it's not really evident, is it?" Luna asked._

_Enough. He tried to attack her, but in dreams nothing worked as he wanted. Luna's morbid plush thing fell from the sky, squashing him. Literary. He turned into a puddle of green._

_"Uncomfortable when things aren't about you and your feelings?" Luna asked.  
_

_He tried to ignore her, but with them bending his dreams it wasn't so easy._

_Claire pushed it aside. Valgarv tried to reform as Val hoping to uphold the charade, but since the program had no subconscious of its own, all that resulted in was random memories of Valteira playing outside the reed sphere.  
_

"That confirms it then," she said. "I wondered since the first time Valgarv got out, some time in Wizer's house. Xelloss mentioned narcissists, I became curious and wouldn't you know? _Wizer had some very interesting files on psychological profiles of criminals lying around his house. Malignant narcissists were of particular interest."_

__Detached eyes blinked open around her, like those Luna had created for herself._ _

__Claire had learned from her, and she'd been learning even more when he thought she'd been asleep._ _

_Going through Wizer to Zoana when Xelloss could have teleported them to Zoana ... he had probably spawned Zoamelgustar. He could zone in on it. Not that one could ever be sure with Xelloss, but Valgarv knew one thing. Strange as Xelloss was, he could not disobey direct orders even if he found new information along the way, but he could arrange for others to do what he needed done.  
_

__"You didn't create this on your own, did you, Valgarv? I bet Volphied helped you," Luna asked. Her dream shape grew larger, somehow. Sharper. Even in dreams, bloodlust could be sensed.  
_ _

__"Luna, wait. We need to find out more," Claire said. "We should figure out a way to restrain him, maybe keep him here."_ _

__"Yeah, let's do that after I took his limbs off."_ _

**· · · · · · ·**

The door of his room splintered, forcing him awake. He needed a moment to realize that the woman in the doorway was the same creature as in his dream. As a human, Luna looked so mundane.

"Luna, wait! Without him, we'll be visible to the angels," Claire said somewhere behind her.

"Don't be ridiculous! Luna can clip the bastard without killing him!" Dirgear snapped at her.

"Right. If we're keeping this dog, we're keeping him safe." All four of those tentacles projected into the physical world, flames twisting off them without burning anything. Her projections ghosted through the wall as she stepped in, but they'd cut him just fine.

He shot to his feet and prepared to transformed. Luna almost truck, but was distracted.

A door down the hall opened.

"What's all the racket about?" Zangulus yelled. "This is going too far! You are guests in our kingdom and I demand you behave!"

"How about we do behaving somewhere else?" Claire said.

Valgarv saw a wing shoot up behind Luna, then Claire was off towards the humans. She dragged Dirgear along.

"I don't plan to make a mess!" Luna said, insulted.

"I'm just playing safe!" Claire called.

He could keep her in his hollow at a range of about two hundred meters, but was it worth it now? He needed to stay alive, but if that went at the cost of him, or even just his mobility, it wasn't worth staying.

From the sound of it, Claire had grabbed the royal couple and jumped out of a window, Dirgear following on foot. As their protests grew farther away, Valgarv made himself just as scarce. He shot out the window and dove into the undergrowth of the crater.

Luna followed him as leisure, sometimes running, somethings using her powers to jump ahead. Cats must hunt, but he could only appreciate that when he was the cat.

The worst about Luna was that she was a chimera too. Pure magic could be blocked out with his hollow, but she combined holy flow with a very organic way of projecting. The same way he had been preserved through the rebirth, and he couldn't cancel out himself. All the hollow did was blind her astral side, and as long as she grew extra physical eyes that didn't even impair her range of sight.

He couldn't hide for long.

When she caught up, she wore that cocky smirk begging to be torn off. He grew a dragon arm and swiped at her face, but she pierced his arm with a claw of her own. Twisting the arm behind his back, she forced him to his knees, keeping him down by setting her leg on his back. Even growing wings didn't throw her off, she just pierced them with her spikes.

"Bad child," she whispered as she pulled his arm further.

He turned into her twist, tearing off his own arm. In the moment of surprise, he lurched his other arm at the silver chain around her neck.

He touched it only for a second before Luna pushed him away, but that was enough. He knew the talisman's magical signature now. Volphied might be far, but he had enough of her power to impersonate her. He commanded the talisman to come.

The connection with Zelas's chain burned. When it dropped out of the chain, Luna caught it on reflex, but he using raw power to jerk it away. Magical items were pretty easy to apply telekinesis on, so it—

He noticed the rustling to the left too late. Dirgear threw himself on the talisman in mid air, dislodging Valgarv's grip with sheer presence — trolls were creations of Shabranigdu, they had an innate magic just sharp enough to disrupt his trick. This had nothing to do with his concentration.

Before Valgarv could readjust, Dirgear had brought the talisman to Luna. She caught it, encasing it with scales right away.

If Luna was anything like her sister, she could be distracted by targeting bystanders.

He dove right ahead, feigning to aim for her. Luna put the talisman behind her and raised her wings forward, but he never hit them. Instead, he sidelined and bore down his claws on Dirgear's back.

Dirgear crumpled down to the ground as a bloody mess, and for a moment Luna's miasma was thick with worry and rage. Valgarv prepared to strike the moment she lunged, but that never happened.

Her worry disappeared, as did the bitterness and the guilt. Rage remained, but it was a cold and calculated thing it turned her into. Her grip on the talisman tightened.

"Did you think I'd fall for bait that obvious?" No more worry for the hybrid, not even a glance. If she had noticed he still breathed, she didn't seem to care. "Don't touch my things."

Her skeletal neck on the astral plane snapped forward, the jawless skull at its end breaking as eyes grew through it. Dozens of eyes opened around him, as if embodying her blood lust.

Valgarv had just enough time to burn his wound shut before Luna attacked. He tried tearing off some of her power again, but she blocked and tore off part of his left wing. All his breath was lost to screaming, part for the pain and part for her infuriating existence.

She wasn't even serious about this. With her wielding Siephied like that, whom but the greatest god looked down on him now?

He wouldn't have taken the risk otherwise, but he did what he tried to get from her : a mindless lunge. He lost an eye, skin off his arm and several bones broke, but by increasing his weight he pushed her back. As she lost her balance, he rammed his claw through her projected encasing of the talisman. It cost him flesh and magic, but he got it. Luna's flow faltered.

What was left of Valgarv barely counted as a living dragon, but now he had the talisman he could fully use Luna's stolen power. He needed all of it just to stay alive.

He made it to the edge of the crater, Luna hot on his trail. She wasn't as sharp and focused anymore, he actually gained ground even without flight.

She had more emotions now. Still not as strong as they should be, but she felt.

"I get it," Valgarv said as he dodged another attack. "That stupid thing is your real self."

Finally the smirk dropped, and she stopped. They stood across one another, him triumphant despite the bleeding, her unsure what she wanted.

"What do you meant?" she asked at last.

"You do it all the time," he said. "A non-stop rezast effect on yourself. No wonder you act so much like a god."

It took her long to reply, compared to her usual quirk retorts.

"So what? If I do it, it's cause I feel better this way. Doesn't mean anything but that."

"That's all you've got to say, Luna Inverse? After you were so eager to rid yourself of godly power?"

She wagged her finger. "Ah ah, I don't hate the power at all. I just want my afterlife."

This woman just wouldn't react normal.

"Congratulations, you've become a monster like us," he said, but she didn't take that either. Why not? She felt confused, why didn't she act like she should?

Her smirk reappeared. "No. I'm just a woman who uses her power well."

"That was a welcome to the way I exist, not a claim."

"Pass," she said, followed by something else that drowned in the noise of grinding bones. The dragon ribcage she had on the astral plane pushed into the physical world, the start of the dragon he'd seen in his nightmare.

Valgarv had a policy about how to deal with power imbalance : act confident at all times. Lie when it's useful. Bail at first chance. Pretend he never failed.

He turned into a dragon himself, using projection of his own to fill his missing limbs. With a few forced wing beats, he rose to the sky. She fired after him, burning into his lower legs, but he pushed all energy into the talisman and teleported.

It didn't get him far. He'd never been that good at distance, but it was enough to avoid enemy fire until he was above the clouds.

"I am so gonna need to figure out real flight soon," Luna said. "I owe that guy so much painful death and now he isn't here."

He still heard her talk, her voice echoing through the power he'd taken from her. She seemed to argue with Claire, but the farther he went the less he heard.

For nearly two hours, all he did was fly south-west and try to calm down by thinking up ways he'd kill Luna Inverse. The idea of letting her sister return was tempting him so much, just so he could kill them together. But no, he had a bigger purpose. He made up his mind : he'd try to control the hosts of Shabranigdu. Part of the plan he and Volphied had concocted involved taking over Shabranigdu's power by hijacking the host connection. If nothing else, he could do this. If he coupled it with playing master to the devil clan, he could work from there.

His birds told him they were on the island of Deep Sea Dalphin.

**· · · · · · ·**

Dalphin's island was simple on the outside : a set of shallow sand banks from the top. The place curiously devoid of devils, he not only landed but found his way inside without encountering a single one.

Inside it he had to take on human form, small as it was. The interior reminded him of Filia's kitsch obsession, except worse.

He didn't encounter anyone till he reached the center, where the radiance of Shabranigdu's power was strongest. Between him and what was the vault was Deep Sea Dalphin. He knew her at once, for his doves had visited her before.

Seated on a pule of pastel pillows sat a woman in blue, pearls over her dress and her eyes black as her hair. Though the picture of elegance, somehow she still felt like a wild beast contained within. Not the kind that would burst forth, but the kind quite comfortable with its disguise.

"Welcome," she said without meaning it. "I have heard most curious rumors of an Ancient Dragon flying again. Might I presume you are the same that caused a stir in Kataart a while ago?"

"That depends on what you heard," he said.

"We've heard tale of a chimera attacking the golden dragons, a chimera of man and bird. Rather like you at this time, yet now you have been seen as an Ancient Dragon. Tell me, am I speaking to Valgarv or to a scarce survivor hidden for a long time?"

"There's no need to be so rude when I've come such a long way to meet you," he said. "After all, did you not offer a chimera to join the devils seven years ago?"

She laughed lightly. "I'm afraid we can't offer you the death of Lina Inverse. She is not in this world anymore."

"A vengeance spree is below me now," he said easily. "But I still want a part of undoing the mess of this world."

This was gambling on Xelloss not having told her he'd been rebelling against the Lord of Nightmares.

"Oh, have you now?" she said, unconvinced. She would not trust a dragon, but the sibling of her lord? He had the hatred to fill the role and no love for this world. Better to play it safe for now, that much he remember from Volphied's plans. Tact.

"Yes. I am Dark Star Dugradigdu," he said. "I have taken over this soul, who hated the world so much I could settle. I allowed myself to be reborn to blend in and survive."

Not a little startled, Dalphin inclined her head, not quite a bow but respectful. She would need more convincing, though.

"Oh, lord Dark Star Dugradigdu. Forgive my insolence, I mistook you for a lesser being. May I ask where you have come from?"

It could not harm to say this much. In fact, it could be a lot of fun and if he played this right, he could corner Zelas. He had always had a healthy understanding of peppering lies with truth.

"My host was adopted by another dragon, Filia Ul Copt. I bet you heard Xelloss rant on her. And yes, I caused a stir in Kataart a while back. That was my awakening. Rangort had sent Filia to build fusion vessels. The demon half was created using a demonsblood talisman tapping into the power of Lei Magnus, who had already become a chimera." She started to speak, but he held up his hand. "No, it wasn't the summoning pillar. Don't be ridiculous, woman. I steered my host to the talisman and used it to wake up, and after that ..."

He conjured up a dove. This she recognized : after all, he'd used it to deliver the talisman to her.

At his command, the dove turned into Volphied's ghostly human form and he had her say, "I whispered to you to take Lina serious because I suspected her involvement with the gods. She mentioned it while visiting Filia. I made a point of spreading rumors about her and movement of war so I could create a world to feed me."

That didn't quite come out the way he wanted, but close enough.

"And for what goal would this all be, lord Dark Star?" Dalphin asked. "You must understand why cannot let _you_ destroy _our_ world."

"Don't worry your pretty little head. I just want the power to return to my world and do that before the gods use that machine. So, don't we have a common goal?"

"Hmm. It does sound very tempting," she said. "I'm not sure whether we can be of help, though. We tried taking the hosts of our lord to the machine and somehow merge them, but we failed in that. We're at a roadblock."

"Off course you failed. You've never been cut into pieces, but I know how to reform. Show me the hosts." There were a lot of holes to be poked into his spiel, but he knew as much that he could not incriminate Zelas. They'd learn about Claire and the god revival plans, which he could not be connected with. That would conflict with his Dark Star act.

"I'm not certain. You _have_ tried to destroy our world before, lord Dark Star. Why would it be different now?"

"Volphied drove me mad, she had sympathies for my host. I made sure to kill her remnant."

"Indeed? What a hassle, lord Dark Star. Are you sure you do not retain some of her power? Why doves, I wonder?"

"Inconspicuous, and off course it's her power. I use them to travel the flow."

"How can a devil wield holy power, if I may ask?"

"That's what this soul is useful for," he said. "It can use god parts easily, for learning things like the hosts you keep. Show me the hosts."

"Maybe I'd rather store you instead," she said, taking one dainty step off her pillows. She stood before him in a blur, pitch eyes staring down at him. "I appreciate your help, but you must understand I have little proof of your new claims."

Perfect. He closed his hollow around her at its deepest pit, cutting off his own connection to the astral plane entirely. "Go ahead," he said. "Try to attack me, see whether it works any better than on those from the other world."

The hollow tickled at her projection, forcing her astral form to shrink into itself, too dense to be comfortable. She did not plead to be freed, as he'd hoped.

"I understand, and I see," she said. "Will you let me go? I shall show you."

The moment he loosened up, she shifted thirty meters away. "Follow," she said lightly, but he caught a wisp of fear. She was stronger than he was, but what good was that if she couldn't touch him?

Dalphin had placed the two mothers in aquatic incubation chambers, deep within a double vault. Round spheres in marine glow contained them : one of them asleep, one of them cut open to expose the womb. The fetus drifted in the water before her, open for the mother to see. When Valgarv entered the room, she looked at him and moved her mouth as if to speak, but the water muffled the sound. She would have drowned if not for the tube through her neck. She didn't interest him for long.

The visible fetus bore no sign of Shabranigdu, but on the astral plane an unusual red glow surrounded the featureless blob.

Since magic held the water spheres together, he could reach in with ease. Careful not to cuts its life yet, he closed his remaining hand around it. Keeping his actions hidden with the hollow, he opened a soul window and began to engrave the barely developed mind. The brain was so small he couldn't do much with it, but without Volphied he couldn't create new systems anyway. The simpler, the easier it was for him to control. For now, all he needed them to be was weapons.

Shabranigdu tried to get out through the soul window, but it didn't work like that. It was no gate, just a drain for devil power.

He tore loose the fetus and grew a wing. By forcing the small soul to blend into his flesh, he could keep it and use it.

"I have contact with Shabranigdu," he told Dalphin. "He says he wants me to host him."

"I am not one to question my lord and master. Would you like the other fetus revealed?"

"Yes."

Dalphin picked the other human out of her container and held her up by the neck. Valgarv tore her stomach open, which got him screams and messy fetus. This time, he used Shabranigdu's power to burn off the cord. For those one, he grew his other wing.

When Dalphin realized he used her power, her suspicions waned entirely.

"What does our lord say?"

A royal helping of foul language, but Dalphin didn't need to know that.

"We have to subdue Lei Magnus," he said. "Shabranigdu says he has plans to take over the machine that the gods built, and he's still seeking to control you and the other two."

"I wish not to displease, but Lei Magnus commands the voice of Shabranigdu. If we go near—"

"I'll take care of that. Here's how we'll do it ... "

**· · · · · · ·**

Now he was here, he realized he could have done this before.

That was a downside to the Val program, it disrupted his active thought process. He could think independently of the program, but any information in the short term memory had some trouble getting through if the Val program didn't deem it worth remembering. When his messengers had told him the hosts had been obtained, he'd needed to activate Val in short order, and Val had not processed it in the same way. That, and he had a lot of fun playing with Claire, so he hadn't thought of it even as his complete self.

Claire wasn't fun anymore, but he had others to meet. Filia still had to atone, but what to do with her after that? It would be a while before he could rebirth the entire world.

If she and Xelloss agreed enough about the goal, they could be dangerous. He could kill Filia, but aside of this being contrary to his plans for her, it might just be her escape. Garv could pass through Megiddo on human souls and retain his personality and memories. Filia had messed with Megiddo's flow before.

Speaking of rebirth risks, a more immediate problem went by the name Leyunso.

Siephied's human rebirth was one of the biggest sticking points in the plans. Yes, she was only human, but she was immortal. If he killed her, she would just be back somewhere else because hell didn't affect her. She was hard to detect and smart with magic. Worse, that curse of hers. All she needed to do was say, "you are Valgarv" and that'd be the end of him. It'd probably force him into sleep mode again.

That could be his salvation, though. He did not delete the Val program because that way, he could at least survive Leyunso with his sanity intact, if not be active. Keeping the program had the bonus of being able to use it later for Filia.

Certain pain is necessary for the world to keep turning, so he must hunt and deities must die. In his hands, the world would be in peace. He'd cut away all the personality traits, all the vanity, spite, whatever he wanted.

If Lina was the Apostle of Chaos, he would be the Messiah of Order.

His grand destiny just made it all the more embarrassing that the channel of his greatest ally, Volphied, had been killed by a house cat.

**· · · · · · ·**


	25. Zelas's Patience

**· · · · · · ·**

A few days of waiting should not try Zelas's patience. As an astral creature, she should be above the cognitive distortions of the passage of time altogether, but she was not as unearthed as she liked. The seconds counted and she had only one other thing to think about.

In light of Xelloss's report on Val's alleged behavior and Lyos losing his link with Claire, she got the impression her coverage of Val was incomplete. She'd chalked up his hollow to being a parting gift from his former allies and thought nothing more of it. Now, she wanted to beeline for Zoana and find out more. Not being able to do that, since Dalphin had left her as supervisor — no word on earth could justify leaving Dynast in charge — she could only drive away time by going over the many ways she could have phrased her orders to Xelloss in a  _different_  way. To do ... what?

It didn't matter, it would change nothing anymore, but it was better to fret on that than do something more boring, like watch the dragons feed. That just involved standing still or circling the mountain as they absorbed light and wind energy. Every so now and then a devil bothered them, all from Dynast. Zelas had forbidden her devils to mess with their dragon (only for as long as they were allies, of course).

The overt excuse for this was that alliances were to be respected and they had no idea which of the dragons did anything vital, but she had another reason. The Sage of Siephied had joined the fray, whose curse Zelas wanted as far away from her pack as possible. Considering the Sage came out of the underground every day, that required constant distance.

Xelloss had reported she called herself Leyunso nowadays, which wasn't the only chance she had undergone. The Sage she saw today wasn't the whimpering, ragged person Zelas had met thousands of years ago. While still a black woman, she now dressed in bright orange and green. Confidence shone in her every step, even as she remained cautious.

More often than not, the Sage looked right at her and when Zelas looked back, it felt like standing under the eyes of the eldest in the universe.

In between Shabranigdu with the ability to override her volition and Leyunso affecting perception, there lay why she needed this world to change.

Was she Siephied itself, whose ability to see did not stem from power being used, but being an intricate part of the world itself? The Sage had claimed as much, but Zelas didn't believe it. By now she'd found plenty of  _reasons_  not to believe it, but it had begun with the way the Sage had said it. Zelas  _knew_  that any claim she made would be disbelieved by those who heard it, yet she also  _knew_  the Sage lied with the kind of fervent, obsessive belief that she as a brainless mind shouldn't possess. The worst was the doubt : how did sarcasm interact with the Sage's curse? Zelas couldn't tell whether she disbelieved the Sage's claim to be Siephied because she'd detected genuine sarcasm, or because the power had made it seem like sarcasm.

Xelloss believed himself to be immune to her power, but that could be achieved with a statement as simple as,  _You're not immune to my power_  followed by  _I told you something about how my power works on you_. Maybe she had done similar already with Zelas herself. She had no clue on how her curse worked on astral beings, who did not fabricate memories the way organics did, yet were far more susceptible to cognitive damage.

Leyunso had tried to ally with Lei, and Zelas couldn't even tell whether the failure was the better option to success. Once Leyunso had been her ally too, but now? No idea where she stood, other than the opposing slope.

"My liege?" Xelloss appeared at her side, projecting in standing form. He normally would have taken a knee, but she preferred the lizards not get upset at her presence, so during daylight report they feigned a different scene.

Zelas herself manifested as a typical wolf, only its colors a link to her true form. "You may approach."

Hesitant, he did sat next to her. She leaned her head on his knee. "Scratch."

Their new routine didn't sit well with his strict adherence to their protocol, but Zelas found it rather easy to get into. In particular, having an itch scratched was so good, it was worth projecting an itchy ear to begin.

"I'm afraid that Lei Magnus is as silent as the prior days about this mysterious agent who contacted him. However, I also have good news. Mister Lyos thinks his contact with miss Claire is restoring. The distance and their broken flow make it difficult, but once he has gained full control of Ragradia's power they should be able to communicate again. He's expressed the idea of putting Lei Magnus back in the seal and being its keeper."

"That might be our best option, though I shall have a hard time explaining to Deep Sea Dalphin where he would gain the knowledge to do this. Anything else?"

"Actually, yes. Miss Milina insists we tell miss Filia and mister Lyos. I am inclined to agree. Who knows what stupid things they might do out of ignorant heroic impulses?"

"Knowing might also cause them to choose a stupid course," Zelas said.

"Or maybe I'll do something smart and then you don't get to feel oh so superior, you slimy hairball!"

Zelas and Xelloss jerked up. Being surprised by dragon presence just didn't happen, yet Filia just stood behind them.

Smiling without meaning it, the Sage of Siephied stood at her side. Oh great, see who advanced the art of masking energy signatures and dissolving miasma.

Zelas shook her fur and raised her head. "Slimy hairball, you said?"

Xelloss shifted to Filia's side and clamped a hand over her mouth, a nervous smile on his face. "Please forgive her, my liege. She may have very unrealistic expectations about respect for devils due to me."

Zelas tilted her head a little back, giving the impression of staring down at the dragon despite sitting lower. Filia paid her no heed as she tried to pull Xelloss's hand away. Even as Xelloss feared Zelas would lash out, amusement crept into his emotions.

Filia's one admirable trait was her drive to get what she wanted, but otherwise she was a glorified pet. Zelas did not share her taste in companionship with her priest, but differences were no sin. Xelloss had a distaste for smoking and was no better or worse for it. Now if he'd argued in her favor, this would have indicated the little dragon had sway over him, but no.

"She may speak," she said, who released her.

Filia elbowed him away and snapped, "You can't just treat us as pawns!"

"I can and I am, not that either would have changed much on our situation. In fact, is it not convenient you are here now to help us contain Lei Magnus?"

"That's besides the point! Useful coincidences don't make up for the fact you're refusing to tell us anything. The gods are blinded, why won't you tell us anything?"

"You know the reason."

"Mister Lyos and miss Claire will soon have all their power at their disposal. Whatever I and miss Luna would have to keep a secret will be safe once they help us, but you won't tell because it would give us power. I bet that miss Luna can do something terrifying with that talisman. I bet together we can figure it out now that we know ... what was it called again? Tel al-Metaliom?"

She answered in the single most obnoxious way she could think of.

"No."

"How about you explain the curse? Lyos doesn't need my help right now."

Zelas hated with a passion what those words did to her thoughts.

_Lyos doesn't need my help at all. Lyos does need my help but not right now._

Zelas was old enough and had learned enough languages for her mind to become stuck between the two possible and contrary interpretations. The curse compelled opposite belief, not opposite interpretation. Giving the timing and the preceding sentence, Leyunso probably meant to indicate Lyos needed help. Zelas dithered on thinking too hard, because the subtle push stood on the edge to tip whatever she accepted into disbelief.

As a devil, as long as she didn't deny herself, she should be  _safe_ from having her mind altered. This woman could just make some sounds and  _alter_ her.

"No," she said, but this time it was no taunt.

"What curse?" Filia asked.

"It's a secret right now," Xelloss said.

Zelas considered. If Lyos knew who she was, he could let her into his mind. The Sage's abilities would surely help him, but did Zelas want someone to have so much influence over him? How did Leyunso's curse even work  _within_ a mind?

Lyos didn't come outside, but Zelas could guess what happened to him right now. Astral anatomy did not line up with mortal anatomy, but rough correspondence could be made. Lyos's original power corresponded roughly to heart and internal organs; when attached to him it had become more visceral in part due to the way organics thought about their corresponding parts. The proverbial skeleton had been what had kept Lei Shabranigdu sealed, now it rejoined its internals through the astral scars of the pillar's summon. Lyos's tiny human brain was not equipped to deal with such an excess of sensation, this was exactly what Hylaker had exploited before. Only the mentally weakened could be possessed by devils.

Others must have noticed something wrong too, because Filia hunched down before Zelas. Staring right in her eyes, she demanded, "What are you planning to do with miss Luna and mister Lyos?"

Baring her fangs more than she needed to speak, she said, "You need not worry for miss Luna. Her role ends with the angelsblood talisman. I shall have Xelloss tell you if you need extra confirmation."

Filia just frowned. "I am certain he does not lie of  _his own_  accord, but I know he cannot disobey his creator. That means nothing. Also, you're leaving mister Lyos out of that. Why do you and Claire need him? I think I should know. Mister Lyos isn't well and I bet that has to do with Ragradia's power. I have to help him."

"Pray tell, why would he need  _your_  help? Would you care to tell me what you and miss Luna have done inside your little head?" she purred.

"You slimy hairball, it's not like I'm going to be able to do anything wrong when I don't know the details! For goodness sake, there is a hole in his soul gate. If you don't want gods getting in, it needs to be closed."

Zelas shook her fur and faced Xelloss. "Soul  _gates_? She can close them?"

"This is what I attempted to craft with mister Laust," he said. "I did not succeed, though I believe I have a grasp of the concept."

"What?" Filia asked. "Devils shouldn't be able to do that just like ... unless ..."

The light flickered on; Lyos most have told her some time about Dalphin's plot a few years ago.

"Where is mister Laust?"

"Nowhere," Xelloss said with extra cheer.

Filia's face fell, as did her mood. Delicious.

"You two really are devils. I played with the idea that maybe you tried to revive Siephied, but I really hope that's not it. It can't be for anything good," Filia said.

Before Zelas could respond, Xelloss gave the most peculiar little laugh. "No. We couldn't if we wanted to, assuming Siephied even was willing."

He cast a funny look at Leyunso, which put Zelas's fur on edge. She really had him believe she  _was_  Siephied. Leyunso had already messed with him and he could not do anything about it, nor could Zelas.

Shaking out, she said, "Xelloss, remove these people. It would be suspicious if they have a lot to talk about with the mere guard wolf I am feigning to be."

"As you command." Using his staff, he nudged the two down the path they'd come. Leyunso marched away immediately, but Filia looked back.

"Oh, and purring wolves sound  _ridiculous_ ," Filia threw over her shoulder, prompting Xelloss to nervously drag her away.

Zelas would have been offended by the lizard if she wasn't so spooked by the sage.

**· · · · · · ·**

By evening, Xelloss reported that the thickening of Ragradia's power around Lyos now blinded those using the astral sight spell. Aside of causing a religious breakdown here and there — how could holy magic  _distort, oh my!_  — it meant Zelas could enter the sanctuary without causing a panic. Still feigning to be a wolf, she followed Xelloss around and got a good fill of negative emotions.

Dragons from across the globe had gathered here, several of whom she recognized. This gave her some idea of the myriad of reasons to bring them here on top of their emotions. This one felt enough pride to push down the fear (adding spoilage), that one was terrified of both the enemy (crisp fear) and social failure that would follow defecting (oily fear). Some were here because compassion drove them, like Filia. She divided her time between healing newly injured and helping Lyos balance his power.

Lyos had secluded himself in one of the empty rooms in the uppermost level. To approach him, she projected as a cat and sat in the corner of the room.

"Greeted, mister Lyos. How are you doing?"

"Well, Claire's trying to contact me, but with all this astral noise her flow is so distorted. How long is this going to take?" he asked lightly, though it took him effort to sound so.

"I do not know," Zelas said. "Surely you understand I have no experience with this scenario."

"Dammit, you're the one who came up with this plan," he said, still straining himself down.

"I and miss Lina Inverse. She has been in charge of the holier aspects of the construction. Speaking of such, I have an important request."

"What is it?"

"Can you choose to eat certain emotions?"

"I probably can. Why?"

This wasn't said easily. It should never have been said at all.

"I am worried about Xelloss and he is worried about me to a degree that should not exist for devils," Zelas said. "Should an incriminating situation occur where those of the devil clan could sample our state, I would be much obliged if you dispersed or consumed the emotions."

"Sure. I guess you'd want me to munch on all the fun he's having with Filia too?"

"Is it that bad?"

"It's that good," Lyos said with a smirk. "I'd call it happy if he wasn't so sour about her rezast use, that kinda spoils the taste. Not that astral's emotions are that palpable to begin with."

"Hmm? You speak of astral beings as a whole?"

"Gods don't experience happiness or love. At best they are content," Lyos said. "Didn't you know?"

"Earthlord Rangort and I never discussed such matters, though I can easily imagine the others like e is."

"Will the new Ragradia be like them too, even if Claire's more human now?"

"Ha! Claire is more versatile, but not more human. Honestly,  _you_  should know better than to use human when you mean compassionate and changing. Perhaps you ought to worry your kind of mind does not affect her greater logic and reasoning," Zelas sneered.

He gritted his teeth — he had fangs now — and looked away, trying to distract himself from the urge to attack her. "Look, I just ... I don't want to die for nothing. Making this choice was already hard enough. Do you have to just rub it in my face about how much better you astral are?"

Filia poked her head into the room and froze when she spotted Zelas.

"What are  _you_  doing here?" Filia asked.

"I am observing the welfare of my investment," Zelas said.

"Hmmmph," was Filia's oh so eloquent response. She stepped in, her arms filled with magic-embedded rocks.

"What are those for?" Lyos asked.

"Help. I spoke to the Sage of Siephied, for as much as that's possible. She never tells me anything straight. It's obvious she's sarcastic, but if she doesn't tell me what she means I still have to guess. Is that her curse, that she can't say things directly?"

Zelas didn't dignify that with a reply.

Filia placed six rocks around Lyos and drew a magical line between them, forcing the holy flow to focus on six points — dam for Lyos's power fluctuations.

Lyos sat up, closed his eyes and opened the gate of his soul. With the motion of her fingers and no spell, Filia helped smaller chunks flow in.

Zelas shuddered. Even if Filia only affected the most outer, simplistic layer of astral anatomy, it was still an external change. Lyos has given her permission as if it was nothing to worry about, yet that someone like Filia had this potential horrified Zelas.

Rather than being enraptured with a cognitive ideal, for Filia it was driven by a scarring compassion. She was hardly unique in this, but the way she combined this with pride and fire, you would think it was a religious lifestyle to her. Compassion nagged at minds to alleviate it. If Filia's mercy was the kind that would justify tampering with a devil's mind ...

"Will you stop hanging around? You disturb the flow," Filia snapped at her. Too busy to feel fear.

"Filia. Don't make her dislike you even more," Lyos said.

That should have made her cautious, but Filia's contempt quietly piled up instead, as did her determination to help Lyos.

Zelas couldn't help but ask, "Why is this personal to you? You hardly know this man."

"You wouldn't understand," Filia said, not looking at Zelas.

"I understand you are possessed by a psychological function meant to ensure the survival of the species, combined with a personal, arrogant ideal that has you thinking you know how to do that best. Let me warn you : the world is not formed by the goodness you value."

"Heh, as if yours is going to be better," Lyos sneered. He didn't look at her either and Zelas oddly felt locked out despite both being her pawns.

"Honestly, I find it hard to believe miss Lina would agree to the plans of someone like her," Filia said.

"She must know what she's doing, that's what I'm gambling on," Lyos said, chuckling.

"Maybe her being gone is exactly what Zelas's personal version of the plan needed," Filia said.

Deceitful as Zelas was, she preferred not to be seen as stupid, so she had to correct, "I would not play with forces greater than mine without proper aid. Call me no fool, I did not ensure my one ally is missing. Miss Lina Inverse bets on her power to subvert me in the crucial moments, but until then we are in one line."

Let her brew a little on the implication that her best friend gambled the world. Would she remember Lina had done so before? The Giga Slave to save the fate of one mere man.

Judging by her doubt, Filia did.

"If you don't leave," she said stiffly, "I'll tell the dragons who you are."

"What would that matter?" she asked, but she had to heed it. It mattered because the devils outside shouldn't know she was sneaking around in here.

**· · · · · · ·**

When Zelas returned to her usual slope, she told a curious Dynast that she'd fed and no, her victim hadn't survived the torture, he could go back to his station now.

Three hours later, Xelloss approached her.

"My liege," he whispered. "We have a problem."

"Speak," she said, just knowing the next unexpected thing was about to hit.

"According to miss Milina, Lei is negotiating with the Zenaffa armors. Some of the armors will betray their masters if this goes on."

"How could he possibly persuade them?"

She didn't expect an answer. As devils, Xelloss and her could never investigate a Zenaffa armor.

"Well, I suppose I could ask ..."

Sometimes Xelloss didn't take a hint very well.

"Never mind. Tell miss Milina that if we replace the treacherous armors it should be manageable. We can contain him like before but will need better Zenaffa masters."

"As you command," Xelloss said before vanishing.

**· · · · · · ·**

Another two hours after that, Fibrizo style hell broke loose on the other mountain.

First the dragons, elves and humans swarmed out.

Next a shockwave of Ragradia's power rolled inward, colliding into Lyos. At least, she hoped it was that and not his death.

Trying to be patient during utter chaos (modern day style) was worse than during silence. What had happened? Lei and Lyos might have come to clash, but everything else was a variable. If Lei had Zenaffa armors, that would give him some cover, or would it? Would the fragile fusion magic of Xelloss and Filia do anything? Could Milina and that weak gem handle another round?

She better not have  _any_  expectations.

Clouds gathered over the mountains, fog thickened until even her wolf eyes saw nothing. Rushing water drowned out all other sounds and ice covered the slopes only to melt again without rhyme. Screams and roars came from the torrents, Zelas recognized none. Was one of them Lyos, losing control at last?

When a sharp wind cut through the clouds, she spotted a faraway red point shoot around a cluster of glowing water. The next gust stole sight again, but brought Xelloss along.

His form frayed from exposure to the holy power. Zelas unfolded her wings so Xelloss could take shelter below them.

"My liege, do you know what is happening?" Xelloss asked.

"If you do not know, I know less. Did Lei and mister Lyos fight?"

"Miss Milina was knocked out first. Lyos tried to restrain him until the Zenaffa masters could speak to their armors, but none listened. Lei said something very strange as he passed me : that he did not know how, but someone controlled Shabranigdu. I would have asked about it, but mister Lyos attacked him."

"I see." Zelas bore her claws in the ground, drawing on the animal instincts she had painstakingly installed her projection. A vanity a long time ago, a source of knowledge now : the earth spirit responded.

"Brace yourself, Xelloss. Lyos is about to take in the remainder of Ragradia's power."

Barely had she said it, did the mist and ice pull together into a howling hurricane. Out of the rushing waters, a tiny red figure broke free, flying with the wings of Zenaffa armor.

That was it. While Lyos's messy integration of power claimed all attention, Lei Magnus made himself scarce. Just ... gone. Flown away. Another wild card for her collapsing scheme.

A tremor ran through the mountain range, shaking loose the snow and rocks at all peaks. The elves in the air turned their Zenaffa into giants and the dragons tried to ascend.

Wind rushed out as the tides rose into the valley and around the mountains, freezing and unfreezing. How much of this was mere side effect or Lyos losing his mind, Zelas could not tell.

"Ehm, my liege, I think I should check whether miss Filia's alright. I can see better again, I'm sure I can avoid Ragradia's power now."

"You may go," Zelas said numbly. Xelloss lingered for a second, one worried eye open at her, but then he left.

What now?

Just ... what now?

Whatever could happen, she didn't have much left to play.

On a wholly different note, this was an awful time to be playing.

Xelloss shifted into view near a cliff, Filia in his arms. This lasted for a breath before Filia pulled herself up so she sat on his left arm, braced one arm around his head and the other grabbed his cloak. Her tail hooked around his back and across his shoulder.

"Eh ... what ..." Xelloss managed to get out.

"You're not dropping me  _this_  time," she declared, her face determined and sour.

Xelloss, who could have done a thousand horrible things to make her more respectful, responded with nought but whining. Did not even open his eyes as he said, "Miss Filia, you are vastly exaggerating my tendency for good humored jokes. I am well aware of this being a serious situation."

No, really, you're not.

"I must be remembering the first time you dropped me all wrong."

"That was a completely different situation," he sputtered.

Xelloss drifted down to the nearest cliff, slightly electrocuted her and now she fell. Surely he'd intended her to land on her back, but she planted her tail below herself, pushed straight and landed on her feet. With haughty grace and a condescending, "Hmmph," she stood tall.

"See, different situation," he said, but Filia just rolled her eyes. She turned around, looking for the others of her side. Their dwindled numbers turned her mood sour, and Zelas hoped Xelloss would now stop being so publicly interested in that dragon. The water still surged above the valley, but the other devils would soon come closer — they better not see Xelloss hanging around her.

The torrents calmed down only slowly, spiraling down to earth until Lyos alone was in the sky. A few dragons and all the Zenaffa had broken free from the waters, but most dragons were still submerged. Pear shaped clumsy things as they were, they were not prepared to deal with regular water, less so magical water that shifted to ice at random. They sank like rocks.

Lyos seemed ... sane. At least he was still more or less in his kid form, albeit unresponsive and without his sword. Great. Organic wielders of astral powers fared better with an anchor — Dalphin had gotten him his sword exactly for that reason. Zelas hoped he wouldn't try something stupid like control all that raw power.

Dynast appeared at her side, scratching his helmet. "Is he like the new water god now?"

The groan in Zelas's throat wouldn't be contained. "No, he is still the Knight of Ragradia. Lei must have provoked him somehow, knowing that if all that power merged within him short order, the Knight would not function well enough to restrain him."

"So he's not going to kill us?"

"That depends on how quickly he learns to control all that power," Zelas said, right on the tail of a new idea. "Fortunately for us, his sword appears to be missing. He will have a hard time controlling anything without it. Rashat!"

At his name, the general appeared. "You and Grau must go find Banisher before the boy does."

"Hey, I give orders to my priest! Grau, go find Banisher. Not that it makes a big difference, but we want this to be over quickly."

"Do we?" Zelas asked dryly, watching the priest and general shift away (and trying hard not to look at anything on the cliff, lest Dynast look there).

"I am going to do a better job at taking over that human's mind than Dalphin did."

A small blessing came in the form of Dynast's massive ego, because his focus on Lyos kept him from noticing the embarrassing scene with her beast priest. He and Filia talked about things not acceptable for devils : ever the hero, Filia wanted the drowning dragons saved. Xelloss was her most immediate option.

"Are you certain you want to take such a risk, lord Dynast?" Zelas asked, knowing he wouldn't take the suggestion of incompetence well.

"Of course I can do this!" he hollered. "Just watch me!"

Zelas waved him off idly, but what little satisfaction she had at baiting the fool turned bitter when a few hundred meters away, Xelloss took similar bait.

Filia Ul Copt played dirty : "I'll stop calling you garbage if you do this."

"Hmmmm ... I'll do it if you stop calling me  _anything_  unsavory. Cockroach, sewer priest —"

Yes, there it was.

"Deal."

Zelas almost hollered for him to quit this nonsense, but that would get Dynast's attention. Play it cool. Pretend to be frustrated about something else.

With as little as a shrug, Xelloss shifted into the waters and voila, project dragon saving was on the way. He couldn't warp space here, so a few died on the way out. Dead or alive, he deposited them on the surrounding slopes with a flick of his hands.

If this got to anyone with more of a mind than Dynast, how could she explain this? What if this went wrong because Xelloss acted like a hero? False as that was, he did it.

Hundreds of lesser devils all around the mountains, she could not kill them all before they spoke. If she moved, there were a dozen reasons for Dalphin to ask questions.

If it came down to it, Zelas' only way out of a reveal would be to blame Xelloss's defective nature turning him rogue. His loyalty that should ultimately belong to Shabranigdu was hers alone. She could blame Lina Inverse for his corruption. Whatever happened, he would die for her and take their secret with him.

The chink in that was her own response. She'd hate to see him destroyed, could she play that as hating him?

She couldn't afford to lose fusion magic and didn't want to lose her priest, but that logic was not as connected to this as much as it should. As her priest, she had not raised him and he would never leave her service on his own accord, humans had no words for this kind of connection. She'd lose the only other in her pack.

Maybe she should just grab him and flee. Dalphin was not here, Dynast was occupied. Nobody could stop her.

No. What would happen after that?

Chaos be,  _why_  was she in a situation where she needed an excuse for her dragon slayer doing the opposite he was created for?

Grau and Rashat appeared to her left. They had found Banisher and made a valiant effort to carry it, if one could call it that. Its holy power scorched like ice at the slightest touch, so they transported it by tossing it from one to another, taking the time between throws to unfreeze their hands and complain.

They stopped as they passed Xelloss fishing around.

"What the abyss were you doing?" Rashat asked Xelloss, forgetting to catch the sword. It nearly fell into the water, but Grau caught it in time.

"Completing my end of a trade. I save some lizards and my favorite toy won't call me foul names again."

"What a ridiculous bargain! Dragon lives for  _that_? Are you mad?"

"Hmmm ... a few decades of not being insulted at the risk that one day, I might have to lift my  _finger_. I suppose for you such a decision might pose quite the dilemma," he said, theatrically putting his finger on his chin.

Grau threw the sword in Xelloss's face, where it froze on. With incoherent muttering, he tore it off. "Oh my, that stings."

Zelas joined them. "As far as I am concerned, you are all ridiculous. Grau, Rashat, bring that sword to lord Dynast Grauscherrer. Maybe that will help him get through."

Not really. Dynast's weak attempts to invade Lyos's soul were batted away with relative ease. In the wake of his new power, Dynast hardly posed a threat. In fact, the weather had returned to normal and he kept up a steady cocoon of power, while his astral body slowly drew into a healthier form. Claire must be helping him. Going out of Val's hollow posed a risk, but right now it helped.

Grau sighed, but took it on himself to deliver the sword. It took about a minute for Dynast to fail to use it properly, resulting in Lyos reclaiming it. Dynast was chased off so quickly, he gave Lei a run for his money.

This looked better than Zelas had hoped. If Lyos got Ragradia's power under control, she could rearrange her plan. Ragradia's resurrection could take place first, perhaps she could even clean up Rangort in the process.

Xelloss finished fishing up dragons. Zelas allowed him to make another futile attempt to rile up Filia before calling him back. They left Kataart while she scolded him, but her mind was with reconfiguring her plot.

**· · · · · · ·**

At the northern beach beyond the mountains, devils had made a physical home to keep victims for torture. Zelas moved in to feed, wait and fret. It wasn't much, just a simple underground hall full of cages and painful spells, applied to elves and dragons. Most of the victims had been around for centuries and gave off solid misery. It didn't offer diverse flavor, but got her and Xelloss a good fill.

Xelloss was to go to Zoana after recovering. On top of the injuries sustained in hell, he had to cope with exposure to Ragradia's power and battling Lei Magnus, so she could probably explain his departure. Especially if she suggested Xelloss saved dragons just to have something to feed on. Hell knew the injured gave better miasma than the dead.

When Dynast arrived, he could not project lest freezing over. He and his priest said nothing, but Rashat prattled on about their utter failure. Zelas threw in a few comments to add sting to it. Periodically, Dynast would insist he'd put up a good fight, but said little more.

Just as her mood improved, a flurry of sky blue burst into the torture hall. Dalphin's unusual amount of happiness made all devils gag.

"Oh my, I heard you all fled when Lyos gained control of Ragradia's power. I suppose they were right," she said as she clapped her hands together. "Fortunately, I have some excellent news to make up for our double loss."

"Lord Dalphin, why are you here?" Zelas snapped. "Lei Magnus has escaped, you should be guarding the hosts!"

"Zelas, dear, I have a wonderful surprise about exactly that!"

Dalphin stepped aside far enough that her astral body didn't block the person behind her anymore : the most dreadful surprise Zelas had ever received.

She'd never met Valgarv, but had gotten a description : had single horn and black wings, and was a contender for most nonsensical hairstyle on the planet. The one who stepped through the gate fit that to a t, with the addition of malformed fetuses glowing with Shabranigdu's power stuck in his wings.

That was how Lei had negotiated with the Zenaffa. All he had needed to do was show them who walked the world again.

The next puzzle piece to fall in place was Val Ul Copt, even if she didn't know much about the how.

"I don't get it," Dynast said. "A dragon?"

"I am Dark Star Dugradigdu. This form is only one I took because without my powers, I need DNA and an astral body to exist in this world," Valgarv said.

Zelas could spot a liar a mile away, but this was a mere few meters. He didn't speak with Dark Star's voice, it was his own with a layer of Ruby Eye.

"What did you do?" Zelas hissed at Dalphin. It was an irrational assumption to make, but Zelas needed an excuse to feel this way, so better appear irrational.

"He is the only one who can control our lord's power in the remaining hosts," she said coldly. "Now that Lei Magnus is loose, the risk was worth it. Besides, did we not offer Valgarv a place in our clan years ago? Why reject lord Dark Star?"

"We agreed not to let  _someone else_  destroy the world," Zelas snarled.

"Don't worry, I'll let you destroy this world. I only want back to mine," Valgarv said lazily. He sauntered to the nearest prisoners and dug his claws through their arm and ate the resulting pain.

"I still don't get it," Dynast said.

Valgarv took that as a cue to rant, at length, about world destruction. Zelas lulled herself into a haze as she listened.

It just barely passed for a devil rant, and it betrayed a lot about his game. He attributed the building of the machine to Lina Inverse with two allies, and Rangort. Zelas, fusion magic and Claire were not mentioned.

He had to know of her plan if he came from Val, didn't he? There was no way Filia would not have talked of it with her family. Maybe he had another reason to hide it, or he didn't have enough control or power. Boasting about his ability while being aware he had limitations, Valgarv had a precedent for that.

That, or he just wanted an audience.

Narcissists  _needed_  mirrors. If she played along, she'd live longer. There were themes to their interaction with the rest of the world, if his interaction with Lina and Filia were any indication. Death had to be thematic. It made him no less of a murderer, but it was the kind of murder that gave the victim a better chance of escaping.

Dalphin turned to Zelas, implicit on having sampled her miasma. "Why still so gloomy? What can be done to ensure you believe this truly is our lord's will?"

"I will believe it when I see the world end at our own hands," Zelas said. "Until then, I will know him as the one who rebelled against the Lord of Nightmares."

"Come now, I'm sure that was merely that accursed dragon," Dalphin said, though she didn't sound entirely convinced.

"Did he prove it?"

Valgarv looked her straight in the eye for the first time since he'd arrived. His cocky smirk spoke bookparts : he held more cards than her and sought to play them. All he needed now was an excuse to demolish her. If not by revealing Claire existed, then something else. How good a manipulator was he? Was it really him, or did someone else run the game?

His eyes flicked to Xelloss, who boiled with rage next to her. A threat? A joke? Valgarv was still too much of a stranger to her to read.

"I'll prove myself like this." When Valgarv spoke again, his voice carried Shabranigdu's echo. "Dynast Grauscherrer, Zelas Metaliom, Deep Sea Dalphin, order your priests and generals to take a legion and destroy the remaining dragons and elves in the Kataart mountains. Kill everyone on sight."

It didn't matter anymore what Zelas wanted and what motivation sprang from that. Whatever volition Shabranigdu's voice supplanted overpowered all this, though did not negate it. Her once free will clawed as a mangy pup against a cage, any hope to put a dent in it was madness.

Desire or need caused motivation, which in turn became action. Shabranigdu's voice rendered all volition a moot point and substituted it with another thing altogether. Something not of her self.

She stood up, and the volition worked into her actions. In her own voice, she told Xelloss.

"We will do as you command," Dalphin said with glee.

Xelloss cast Zelas an open eyed look, quietly asking for an answer. She had none.

"Xelloss, take my legion, go back into the mountains and kill all you find."

"As you command, but if I may ask one question to lord Dark Star?"

"Yes," she said, because speaking had not been forbidden to her. Yet.

Xelloss took a knee before Valgarv. "I have a bone to pick with a dragon named Filia, lord Dark Star. May I have her alive?"

"You may," he said, never ceasing to smirk. Like he expected it.

He either permitted it due to arrogance or because he had plans of his own, or maybe had hadn't expected her to even be there. Maybe he needed her alive, thought she'd been gone already, took an opportunity to let her live. Did that mean he wanted to use fusion magic for something? Did he believe Xelloss's words? Did Valgarv come from Val in a way that left the child still in there? What did he know?

"Oh, and if you see a woman with dark skin and red hair, do not approach, do not let her speak," Valgarv said. "She is a very dangerous ally of Lina Inverse."

Leyunso an ally of Lina ...

It could be a lie. Please, be a lie. He lied at the drop of a hat, didn't he?

Zelas couldn't move by her free will. No matter how she wanted to find out more, she couldn't.

That left her with one thought : she should have fled when she had the chance.

**· · · · · · ·**


	26. Filia's Shield

**· · · · · · ·**

In passing, Filia had often wondered what exactly made someone a channel to Siephied or Shabranigdu. How long did it take to make someone a channel? Could a new one be assigned on a whim? Could Ragradia do this? Could Knights be channels? Could angels be?

Just how expendable were she, Luna and Claire, if Laust could be killed when Zelas's plot called for it?

It didn't help anyone to worry about that, but she kept having to steer back her thoughts to the here and now. Whatever it was that made her a channel, it allowed her to help Lyos contain his new power.

Filia had always thought of magical energy as having intensity, rather than density. As she tried helping Lyos she shed this idea : magic had not only density, but also structure and texture. Spell energy was just a breath compared to this almost visceral nature.

That made the silence of Lyos worrisome, somehow. For all the vivid energy, it felt like he should move more. Sometimes he'd say, "I'm still sane," but he never said he was still  _himself_. Filia often considered asking whether she would be allowed to visit his spirit, but stopped herself every time. She was not sure she knew what to do.

When she woke after an accidental nap, she found him smiling. "I can sense Claire again."

"That's great. How do you feel?" she asked. "Does she say anything?"

He sat up and cracked his bones. Had Filia need been able to see the utter chaos of his astral body, she could have mistaken him for waking after a good sleep.

"Like hell, but once Claire and I get the telepathy thing going again I bet she can help me. She's already balancing me out from afar."

Filia frowned. "Does that mean she's staying outside of Val's hollow?"

"Yeah ... I don't know why, but I'm getting some really strange memories. I keep remembering that time you told me how Val turned into Valteira in Kataart. I'm not sure why Claire's doing that."

"Maybe miss Milina knows how to improve telepathy. She does have experience being linked to Rangort, after all," Filia said. "I'll be right back."

Milina had taken the brunt of Lei's first attack, which left her worse for wear. Filia knew no way to heal the wounds of angels, so Milina had gone to feed on what little positivity she could find among the healthy soldiers. They had gathered below the statue of Ragradia in the watery hall.

The mood in the mountain had little room for laughter, but the Sailoon soldiers still here (still alive) made a valiant effort. The devil clan wasn't likely to return, so they'd regroup and steer clear of places Lei Magnus might be. A lot of faith was put in the idea that very soon, Lyos would be strong enough to make a real difference for the war.

Milina helped the mood by telling stories about how hell had improved, how that none of the dead were likely to suffer. Communes had risen in what once had been dreary wastelands, and she made promises to carry on messages.

Filia lingered at the edge of the hall, on one side eager to talk to Milina, but on the other side were the eyes of everyone. She hadn't had much chance to explain what happened with Xelloss. If the doubting, confused looks she got were any indication, that would be a hard conversation. Honestly, how was she to explain her people what her deal with the dragon slayer was? She herself didn't know. Gods, he had killed her allies recently.

To her relief, Milina spotted her. After excusing herself, she plane shifted to Filia.

"I take Lyos is stable enough to be alone?"

Filia nodded. "He's back in touch with Claire. Do you know any tricks to improve their telepathy?"

"It depends. I'm inorganic altogether and had years of practice with this life, he doesn't. I can try, but whether he understands it is another question. "

"Thank you," Filia said, grateful for Milina's professionalism. It gave her some stability, however fragile.

As Milina walked back with her, Filia considered asking her about Luke. He had almost destroyed the world because Milina had died. The topic seemed inappropriate, Luke had not been quite himself. On the other hand, he still was that new person, wasn't he? How did Milina deal with it? Did it even matter? Xelloss was far from the fiend Luke had been to Milina. Milina knew to expect good from Luke, while Filia always had to second guess Xelloss's motivations.

"Is something the matter?" Milina asked. "I don't mean to introduce your privacy, but I can't help perceive your emotions this close."

Filia swallowed. "I'm just wonder what I have to say to people like mister Milgazia and mister Azonge. How do I explain ... well, Xelloss?"

"You don't. Ignore them. Once this is over, we're taking you far away from here. Besides, ... you don't want to hear their theories. Most of them think you're in a poisonous romance."

"We don't need that nonsense," Filia spat.

Milina stopped walking. "Then what do you need?"

Filia threw her hands up. "I don't know. What am I supposed to do with Xelloss?"

"Do?" Milina raised an eyebrow. "In what sense?"

"It's ridiculous," Filia sputtered. "No dragon should be on terms with a devil. How can I ... never mind."

"I do mind," Milina said. "Remember, I perceive emotions as an astral. If am to go close to an unstable demigod, I'd rather you not be fretting at my side. Spit it out."

"It's ... oh, I don't know. I always justified my interaction with Xelloss by telling myself that he is a lesser evil than the other devils. I don't know whether I still can."

"You didn't have a choice about interacting with him," Milina said. "Why does it matter?"

"Whenever I'm anything less than hundred percent hostile it feels like I'm going along. He's a remorseless killer."

"Look, I died only to learn I've been a chain on Shabranigdu himself. I thought at most I'd redirected an assassin. That's the way it is. I don't care for what might be, I just make sure nobody suffers. If I can do that by pulling at Luke's love for me and you can make silly bargains with Xelloss that play his pride, what's the problem?"

When Filia only looked down and sighed, Milina walked on. It took Filia a second to say it.

" _That's_  the problem. I don't know whether I can still  _play_. We lost fusion magic during the first fight with Lei and failed again when he broke out. Didn't you wonder why?"

Milina stopped again. "I've wondered, yes."

"We disagreed over mister Milgazia's fate. Xelloss wants him dead because mister Milgazia's existence offends Xelloss's idea of fun. I know Xelloss cannot disobey orders from above, but this ... I don't even know what his orders are most of the time. Maybe he'd be worse if Zelas didn't restrain him. Fusion magic doesn't work if the goals of the wielders aren't aligned. How can I align with someone like Xelloss?"

Milina shrugged. "I don't think my experiences will help you."

Obviously, but Filia just needed to rant for the sake of it. "I can't feel coordinated with someone who treats lives on the same level as foul language and he sure is not making it easier. He said he's afraid I'll do something stupid if I know the full story. Do you think that too?"

"No, but to be honest, I think I don't have the full story either. My link with Rangort makes that an issue. It'll take some time to go over everything to match up our holes."

Oh, great. Wonderful.

"What in heaven and hell is wrong with everyone? This whole mess could have been avoided if they had just taken a year or so to teach me and miss Luna to fortify our soul gates," Filia screamed.

"I'm not so sure that would have made everything go smoothly."

Filia planted her hands on her hips. "Well, it would have made some things smooth _er_. But I guess now we're here, there's no fixing it. Xelloss and Zelas aren't going to stop being jerks, but can  _you_  at least tell me what you know?"

"Alright. There is a project in hell to control the power of Shabranigdu in a new way. The current pieces are split but still of the original mind. We're trying to get rid of Shabranigdu in the smaller pieces."

"Why do they need the talismans? What will the revived Ragradia do? I doubt Zelas does this without gaining something."

"If Rangort seeks to read my mind, that would mean the hell project's secret side is already revealed, but I don't know the exact details of Lina's part. I'm sorry. Lina told us this : Zelas wants to abolish the old world order, but not in a way that defies the Lord of Nightmares. Lina is allegedly the apostle of the Lord of Nightmares and she hinted that Shabranigdu is to be _fuel._ Something to do with the machine in the middle of the demon's ocean. Whatever happens, we'll be rid of Shabranigdu."

"That's  _it_?"

"That's the first good news I got in a while," Lyos piped up.

Lyos who wasn't anywhere in this hallway.

"Look who figured out voice projection," Milina said. "Does this mean I'm not going to have to help with stabilizing your telepathy, or ..."

"You two are within the fraying layers of my astral body. Not exactly long distance, so yeah. I'm still gonna need help."

Fraying ... the moment he said this, what Filia had seen as mere blue waves on the astral plane now appeared more as chaffed skin layers. Making an effort to ignore that, she said, "Miss Claire hasn't even told you as much as that?"

"Not before today," Lyos said. "The usual reasons, mind reading gods and all that, but she's trying to tell me more now."

"Well I'd like you to tell her—" A dragon claw unfolded on the astral plane, held up in a halt sign.

"I think she might know my side of things, but I'm not experienced enough to figure out hers let alone tell her anything, Filia."

Filia gave a tense nod. The rest of the walk back, she questioned Milina on the details of hell and the death of Laust. Well, the second death.

Milina had seen it happen. On the surface Zelas's story held up, but Milina had little faith in the necessity. The man had been one of the few good people down in the hell side of the project, and a friend to Milina. Filia remembered him as a cheerful old man with many good stories and unrelenting heroism. Xelloss has tortured, eaten and experimented on him.

When they arrived at the room, Lyos had gotten his astral body a little more condensed. A thin, scaly layer now covered the dreadful mass of guts and his size didn't flit all over the place anymore. Milina still kept her distance and would not enter the room, keeping the resonance at a minimum.

What Milina added to the flow was method and sense. Direction, form, wavelength and speed all played into a countless variations of magic — Filia set all her mind to perceiving it and pushed all her monsters to the back of her mind.

Lyos's power was unruly to say the least. While not chaotic, the way he wielded it had this raw precision, while Milina's was more like the passing of time. Filia ran short of ways of describing it to herself, she couldn't even tell the difference between wielding and being that energy. The best she could do to help was use her hands to help along the flow. Here it paid off to be a magical creature herself.

"What's your approach to magic?" Milina asked. "You seem to have bypassed auditory control, but you're still material about it."

"Miss Luna and I have stumbled around a bit, but Claire has told me to use hands like before."

"Can you grow wings in this form? I use them for focus, maybe you can do as well. They are limbs after all."

Filia gave a nervous chuckle, remembering a long-ago accident. "I'm not wearing the right clothes for wings."

"Well, try next time Claire's around to help," Lyos said.

"You should know she didn't teach me anything out of the goodness of her heart. I had to push for a contract," Filia muttered. "I suspect if I ask her for more, I'll have to put something else on the table."

"Good to hear you've got no more illusions about the gods," Milina said. "I had about five minutes to enjoy the idea there were caring gods before Rangort made it clear how they operate."

Lyos gave a wry smile. "We should start a club. Member requirements : demigods cynical about the bosses with a side dish of caring for the wrong devils."

"As if there's anything like the right devils," Filia said. "No offense, miss Milina. Mister Luke isn't exactly a devil, is he?"

"He is a chimera now," Milina said. "But I understand your point."

Filia wasn't sure of that. She wracked her mind on how to put to words what bothered her, but got nowhere. It wasn't just that Xelloss veiled everything, it was that he took joy in dangling her around. She couldn't even form a solid opinion on how he took lives because she didn't know his exact position on it.

Milina looked so calm while she worked. Did she really feel at peace?

Lyos might be forcing his smiles, but he made progress mastering his power. Was he really so confident?

Could they project something that they didn't feel? Filia knew so little of astral life.

"So, how's this?" Milina asked once she was done with her next frame of magic.

Lyos flared out some of the outer layers of his power. "Odd ... Leyunso is outside, yelling things into the mountains. I can't hear what she's yelling, she's blocking me somehow."

"If she's eager to talk, something must be very wrong," Milina said with a frown. "Hmm ... ignore her words for now. Can you try to mimic her flow? Look for this."

Milina curled her wings forward and created a sphere of light between her hands. When she blew into it, it flew out like dust in the wind, softly swaying between her wings.

"What's this?" Lyos asked her he took the sphere.

"I think I recognize that," Filia said. "Rather than just reading the natural flow, one uses some holy energy to send out and retrieve. Valwin used it to see what Luna was up to."

"Right," Milina said. "It should work even if normal flow reading is too subtle for you."

"It's not what Leyunso is doing, but I can try it on my own."

Filia waited, hoping to hear why Val had lowered his protective hollow. The only reason she could imagine was that Luna had dealt with whatever threat the gods might have sent, but she didn't look forward to hearing about how.

Lyos quietly complained about how much easier this would be if Orun was around to help him. It took him nearly twenty minutes of tinkering before the distorted message became coherent. Then he grinned, but only for a second before shooting to his feet.

"Valgarv."

"Come again?" Milina asked.

"Claire says Valgarv is alive."

"No," Filia said, no more pressure than when denying the sky was polka dotted.

Lyos looked straight at her. "He hid within Val. Everything, the hollow, the machine, he has a plan in name of Volphied. He's coming for us."

"No," Filia said, more urgent now.

"Claire and Luna entered his dreams, something like that. She's frantic and says he's gathering an army to come capture you and me. He claimed the pieces of Shabranigdu that Dalphin had."

"That makes no sense," Filia said. Val wasn't a trap, he was her child.

Milina grabbed her arm. "Come. You and who ever else can move must get out of Lyos's imbalance. Teleport them away. Lyos, get out of range so you can fight. If you manage to break through the barrier, don't wait for us. We can teleport if that happens. You go find Vrabazard or Valwin — mad or not, they are powerful and the devils won't get close."

"Got it," Lyos said. "Sure the others shouldn't stay close to me?"

"When Lei escaped, you almost killed everyone with your powers," Milina said. "Your control is better now, but is it good enough?"

The two got up and broke from the room. Filia followed in a haze.

Maybe it wasn't Valgarv?

Into the halls, running back down long, long corridors. Miles didn't seem so long for a dragon, but now they couldn't go by fast enough.

Was Val now trapped inside another mind?

With every step, she pulled her energy together. How many people could she take along in one go? Could she invoke Siephied's power for extra teleportation power? Probably not, she could only wield to her own limits.

Had Luna told the truth when she said Val attacked her?

She tried sensing where Luna was, the safest place to go in this world. There was a beacon somewhere with her signature. Reaching for it now, Filia almost caught it ... only for it to vanish at her touch.

"Lyos, what does Claire say?" Milina asked at the same time.

"It's gone again," Lyos said. "The flow is broken... I think there's a barrier over  _this_  place. I can't sense anything outside these mountains."

"We are in deep trouble," Milina said after a moment's focus. "Devils call it a void pyramid, it's the same thing that covered the northern region."

"But why right when we move? They can't know that we're ..." Lyos's voice trailed off and his eyes widened. "Dammit. Can they see it when I move?"

Filia remembered the way the water responded to him, right down to his aggression, but not when he didn't fight. Him firing himself up would have very noticeable effects on the environment, and devils might just want to speed up their plans ... they had to have been there already. The entire time.

Valgarv ... for him to get out, go to Dalphin, that must've taken hours. How long had Val been alone? She should have been there for him.

"Bloody great," Lyos said. "Any way to get around it?"

"No!" someone shouted from the direction they were head. Leyunso rounded the corner and said, "No, there isn't."

"How?" Milina asked without missing a beat.

"Going below it won't work," Leyunso said, making a small scoop motion with her hand. She wanted them to dig below the barrier.

"Okay, why doesn't she just say what she means?" Lyos asked.

"She's got this curse," Milina said. "Hmm ... are there any rules for how people must be told about this?"

"Not quite," Leyunso said.

"Do you know what's up?" Lyos asked to Filia.

"No," Filia said. "She's got some sort of curse, Zelas and Xelloss wouldn't tell."

"Just assume she means the opposite of what she says for now," Milina said. "Go deeper below the mountains until Gaia's energy dominates, see whether you can teleport from there. I will take care of gathering people. Leyunso can lead you, but don't ask her where to go. Just follow."

"Why not?" Lyos asked.

"That would make any direction she goes count as a claim," Milina said. "Look, we don't have time. You can trust her, do it."

At that, she withdrew to the astral plane and shot off faster than any physical creature could.

"We should help," Lyos said.

"Oh yes, that's completely safe," Leyunso said. "Following me is a bad idea."

Filia didn't always listen to what she knew was the best idea, and didn't know Lyos to be that person either, but somehow ... was it the best idea for their survival, or a good idea for ..."

Leyunso shook them both. " _Go."_

"Right," Lyos said. "I'll see you all later. Tell Luna and Dilgear hi."

He tried to smile, but it was tense.

"Goodbye," Filia said. "You know the way out, right?"

"I'll blast a hole if I have to. Don't worry."

He ran ahead and took a left turn, while Filia followed Leyunso down a stone stairway into pitch black. Still, Filia could see the outline of the walls — on the astral plane, the earth's magic contrasted with the mucky hollow.

Once they reached the lower levels, they found a group of devils and lesser demons in one of the wider halls. As one, they turned towards them. Filia braced for a fight as the nearest devil pounced toward them, but Leyunso just took a step forward.

"Hey demon, you're an individual," Leyunso told it. In mid jump, the demon faded to nothing, leaving behind the matter of the creature it had possessed.

Wait, what? Devils  _had_ to be individuals to be, yet the woman had lied, she was sure. There had to be an ... oh, right. It had been an individual right up until it was affected by whatever her power was.

"All you devils are individuals!" Leyunso called. With varying speed, devils and demons faded away. The lesser demons all left behind piles off flesh, indicating it wasn't energy that had destroyed them. Strange ... they'd just given up being?

Only two lesser demons remained standing.

"They can understand language," Leyunso said. "Deal with them."

Filia didn't get how that had anything to do with her power, but there was no time. She took them down with two narrow but strong laserbreath rays. The lesser demons vaporized, but the attack had left cracks in the opposing walls. Next time she'd try to have a spell ready.

As they ran on, Filia tried pulling holy energy together, but there wasn't enough. Even if Lyos were in his chaotic state from hours ago, there should be more flowing around. Had something happened to him?

She couldn't afford to worry. They had to get deeper and dig somehow, if she even could.

The road down brought them past the worship halls where Filia had once forged fusion vessels with Xelloss. Back then it had only one door, but now combat had broken holes in the walls.

They had to wait before passing open space, so they stayed behind the walls, hoping the magic of this earth would shield them. She couldn't see through it on the astral plane, that probably worked both ways.

Sight was blurry, but sound and sense bore down on her. The amount of devils here was thick and so was the amount of cries of their victims.

When devils killed, they liked to draw it out. Filia's first impulse was to run and stop it, somehow, but that would be madness. The most useful thing she could do was get somewhere under the shield and prepare to teleport away whomever Milina could help. Still, in rapidfire she found ideas on what she could do better. Should she have gone with Milina to help her? With Lyos?

Stay here as long as possible or go to Val right away?

Val was with the enemy, she remembered. That thought did not come naturally.

Leyunso conjured together a small water plate, which she positioned to reflect in the inside of the halls. It allowed them to look inside the hall on a purely visual level; they themselves concealed by shadow. They'd wait until nobody looked in the direction of the gaps they had to pass.

The cries went on and on, some of them Filia could recognize. She'd helped heal several of these dragons and elves. Dread boiled up from her stomach — would they notice her emotions here?

Between the agony, the devils spoke in light tones. They laughed and jested. Two voices she recognized, but she didn't want to.

Blue fire engulfed someone on the edge of the mirror's vision — Xelloss's fire always was blue.

The smoke blocked out anyone looking this way. Leyunso pushed her hard, and Filia ran without looking at anything but ahead.

Filia and Leyunso ran until sound wouldn't carry anymore. There, Filia broke open the floor to a lower level. Leyunso had a wind barrier that could dampen sound somewhat, allowing her to use raw dragon strength. The rubble she piled up below, in case Milina and whomever she brought needed it.

They repeated this for a few more levels, but then roads became scarce. Down here, only the storage rooms remained and they still weren't below the barrier.

The enemy was scarcer here, but not lost altogether. Others had the idea to flee lower, only to be chased. More than once did Filia hear death in the distance, right after Leyunso changed route.

Filia had lost track of time once Milina rejoined them.

She'd brought three dragons in human form, five elves and two Sailoon soldiers, each in bloody shape. Filia had hoped to save more, but could she?

"Were you seen?" Leyunso asked.

"Yes," Milina said. "There's a swarm of them right behind us.

"I won't go to intercept anyone," Leyunso said. Without another word, she ran off.

The group Milina had gathered stood on shaky legs, one elf carried by a dragon. They wouldn't be fast, but Filia tried to remain hopeful.

"We're going deeper until I can teleport us," Filia said. "Do any of you have teleportation powers?"

None answered that, some shook their head.

"Okay. Stay close so I can teleport us all the moment I've got a sense of the surrounding. My friend has built a beacon for us, I'm sure. She's powerful, we'll be safe when we get to her."

"You got Xelloss to help us yesterday. Can't you do something now?" one of the elves asked.

"No," Filia said. "I have no influence over him."

"But for a devil to save dragons—"

"He helped himself," Filia said. "He is so powerful that our lives don't mean anything. He doesn't hate us enough to care."

"Yeah, we thought as much," he said, but she heard the disappointment.

Maybe she could do something. She conjured the hell gem out of her pocket space and held it out to Milina.

"Miss Milina, you should be able to ride its flow back to Megiddo, and then return outside the barrier. Could you use this to separate the wolf pack from anywhere Shabranigdu can command them?"

Milina hesitated. "I should stay here and fight for you. I can escape if it's really necessary."

"Necessity is getting Zelas away from Shabranigdu. You already took damage from Lei and if you're wiped clean here, what will happen to mister Luke? Help out if you will, but do it in a safer way."

After Milina had left, Filia stored the hell gem in her pocket space and led the others on.

"There's a way into the natural caves that way," one of the dragons said, so she let him decide the route.

With injured along, there would be no running. At intervals she spoke with them, asking how they did, whether they'd been here before, but nothing about what had happened. She couldn't bear the silence, but she couldn't bear the truth either.

She couldn't give up, but the sense that she would have to crawled up.

It had been crawling up ever since Xelloss's second visit to her home so many years, taking root by the third, when she realized the devils would never be out of her life.

Always closer.

Chasing her down.

He had said no when asked whether he would harm them if they cooperated. Of course, that only counted for as far as the state of cooperation lasted. Now he didn't need them anymore. That's how devils really were.

She counted the corners until the corridors had become caves, and they were still not deep enough. Maybe this barrier went all around. Maybe they'd send some devil to clean out the whole mountain. Maybe they'd send Xelloss.

Valgarv ... she could not unite the idea that Val caused all of this. Something more had to be going on, but what? Could he be ...

She sensed Xelloss before anyone else did. The bloodlust he brought along crumbled what little hope she had.

"Look what we've got here. I didn't expect to find you while chasing angels, miss Filia," Xelloss said.

"What do you want?" Filia asked. "How did you get past miss Leyunso?"

"Miss Filia." Xelloss opened both eyes and smirked. "Run."

"From whom?" she asked, though she knew her enemy.

"From me. Today we'll be playing cat and mouse, but first ..." He flicked a finger at the group behind her, bursting them all into fire. "I'll prepare dinner. You're welcome to try any water spells on that, or I suppose you could try to escape. The field distortions should end at the mountain's edge."

He just kept smiling as if it were a sunday afternoon and the tea was late. A cacophony of echoing roars filled the mountain as they burned — too slow, she knew Xelloss could do it quicker. She locked eyes with one of them; she didn't even know any of them, but knew their faces. At least two of them had been saved from the torrents by Xelloss the day before.

Filia was half tempted to spit every foul name at him, but that seemed such a petty revenge. She could do nothing to get to him now. She never had been able to do that.

Val needed her, she couldn't die here. She couldn't help anyone here. Not against Xelloss.

So she fled, only having the notion to go down. Without guide she ran into dead ends every time and more than once, but she kept going. Didn't think about what followed her, or why. Didn't have to think, she felt it.

Xelloss stayed close enough behind her that she could sense him. If he wanted to he could have caught up, but he didn't. Sometimes ahead, somethings to the sides : he herded her.

"You've isolated yourself quite nicely," he said from the left. She ignored it. An hour ago, she hadn't been alone.

Next time, his voice came from the right. "Or maybe you were left behind."

Every following taunt was a variation, like he didn't even try. He almost sounded bored.

The sound of footsteps joined in, and the ticking of his staff on the rock. Even though she ran fast enough to be out of breath, he never failed to keep up with his slow pace.

Knowing Xelloss, he'd catch her right before the area was stable enough to navigate. He'd know when, she'd taught him after all.

So when she caught the first wisp of the earth's flow, she didn't hope, and she was right not to.

A sharp pain cut through her back— something had struck her right on the spine.

Little bits of gravel got into her mouth, her head pounded from impact. Her cheek and arms had scraped open, but she hardly noticed with the bloodthirsty devil hovering behind her.

"If you move, your life is lost," Xelloss said. This time, she had expected it.

"Did mister L-" The knock on her back forced the air out of her lungs.

"Let's not get off topic now. To be honest, I'm surprised you're leaving when there's all those people needing your help? I didn't think you'd do it." It was exactly the same voice he used to annoy her if she tried walking out of a tea party.

"I know what you can do, so I took your advice," she said, because everything else she might say could bring out worse.

Leaning on his staff, he said, "I guess you're right. You know, maybe I'm getting tired that you've figured out deflecting my bait. True, I've said I thought that's you at your best, but opinions change. Right now, why don't you rage at me like you did before the revelations at your temple, hmm?"

Filia tried to stand, intent to at least face him with dignity, but he swung his staff against her legs. With a cry, she fell back to the ground.

Xelloss hunched before her. "Come on, won't it be fun? I'll give you time to cast Chaotic Disintegrate, but some good old fashioned laserbreath will do."

If she had one leverage left, it was that she could deny him what he wanted.

"Xelloss, shut up," she said, looking away from him. The other end of the hall had a dim grey light, an excess of holy magic? If she could get there, maybe she could teleport out ...

Miss Filia, if you don't become more interesting soon, I'm afraid I'll have to hand you over. I've been permitted to play, should I find you, but I do have a schedule to keep."

"Hand me over to whom?" she asked, careful to keep her voice bland. Her head beat along with her heart, but she managed.

"Your son, I suppose."

Xelloss took her hand. Instinctively Filia pushed away, readying energy to cast at him. He was quicker, as always. He just had to squeeze to break her bones.

"Stop!" she cried out, useless as it was.

He just took her other hand and broke it as well. It went beyond her bones, affecting the flow her magic.

"Stop? Why would he?"

Filia froze up at the sound of that voice, and Xelloss backed to the wall.

Forcing herself up on her knees, ignoring her pain and the fresh wave of bloodlust that he brought, she faced him.

There Valgarv stood as the winged humanoid, only a silhouette against the gray light. There never had been a way out, because he had waited here.

"You still don't understand, do you?" said the dragon who shouldn't exist. "Unless you entertain him, you might as well stop existing."

As he approached Filia, she could see him clearer.

Oh heavens, those wings. He had the horn too and the marks on his cheek, but with every step the black headband burned away and his hair fell down in long waves, till he resembled the dragon she'd seen in Kataart. Valteira, but with the expression of Valgarv and the blood of Shabranigdu.

It sunk in at last. Lyos had no reason to lie. She had neither shock nor acceptance for it, but resignation. The denial of her prayers and aspirations had become enough a part of her life that she almost expected it.

Raising Val to a happy life had been her duty to atone for her people's crimes, yet there stood the dragon she knew to be controlled by past grief. Worse than ever, he looked like he bore the world, tired and torn yet still with that mad grin.

"Our world of the living is ruled by creatures who do not see us as anything but food sources. They do not care for us at all. Don't you think that's unfair?" he asked when he stopped before her.

"That's pretty ironic coming from you," Xelloss said, somewhere out of sight, only to be ignored.

She stood stock still as he approached.

"Val ..."

"Isn't here right now, little lady," Valgarv said.

He sat down on a rock outcrop and pulled her before him. His right hand turned to a claw on her shoulder, the talons playing against her neck. Strands of her hair fell down as he nicked them off with his claws.

When his wings curled around them, the dim glowing veins between the feathers lit malformed unborn, embedded in the crook of the wings. Pitiable on the physical plane, but on the astral plane they radiated stinging red power.

"Shabranigdu ..." she whispered, turning her eyes back to Valgarv. "Why are you doing this?"

"I need them."

"What for? Controlling the devils?"

"If I want to retake my Elmegiddo, yes. That's also why we're here. Getting Lyos and you, making sure Zelas obeys."

"You didn't need to launch a war on us ... why didn't you just talk to us? Do you know what Val knows?"

"My army needs to eat," he said. "I'll get rid of them in due time, don't worry. Certain pain is necessary, but only in  _this_ world. In the one I create, there will be peace."

"Just taking away the gods and devils won't do that," Filia said. "You cannot create a world without war."

"Seeing as he can craft personalities, I'm sure he can," Xelloss said.

Valgarv shot him a glare. "Shut up and go find that angel."

"As you wish," he said, his voice drifting away. "I'll be around."

Crafted personalities ... what did that mean?

"Where is Val?"

"He's safe," he said. "You'll see him again once this over."

She laid her broken fingers on his arm. "Valgarv, please. Let me talk to him."

He just smirked. "Not now. I need you to listen to me. I bet you want to know what Lina's doing, don't you?"

She didn't need to answer, he could taste her curiosity.

"She's going to murder all the astral creatures and remake the world as she sees fit."

"Miss Lina wouldn't do that!"

His other arm turned to a claw and played with her tail.

"Off course she would. You told me yourself, about, what was it, two years ago? Lina is always in pursuit of riches and magic, regardless of what devil or god may command. Now she had a chance for the ultimate magical tool, for the ultimate defiance. I knew she'd be tempted to use it and I was right."

A violent shiver ran over Filia. If nobody else did, Lina Inverse  _had_  to be there for the world and all of life. Filia had never even thought of doubting that.

"Don't be afraid. You'll be alive to help the new world to be born," he said. "That will be the purpose you sought."

Filia shook her head. "No, I can't do anything that sacrifices the world." Hollow words, recited because they were right but she couldn't push strength in them.

"Really? Everyone else does it. Even Claire. She knows the other gods will be executed. That's what you weren't allowed to know. If Rangort caught wind of being used as fuel for a world's destruction ... there it is, it finally clicked. Didn't it, little lady?"

"But ... Miss Lina. She wouldn't do that."

Lina wouldn't ...  _would_  shrug off runaway trains plowing through villages.

Would cast the Giga Slave to save one man.

"Ha! You've been wrong about your elder, your gods, Luna, Claire, Liliane and Xelloss. Why would you be right about Lina?" He let go of her neck and ran his claw up her head. "I'm just trying to help you understand. Do you?"

She couldn't do anything but stare back into his eyes.

"Answer it, little lady.  _Why_  would you be right about Lina?"

"I ... I don't ..."

The echo of step approached from the right, she almost mistook it for the rhythm of her panicking heartbeat.

Valgarv lazily looked up, but his eyes grew wide. Filia sensed Leyunso's strange aura.

"You ar—" Leyunso started, but Valgarv was gone.

She fell aside, bracing her arm on reflex. It put all her weight on her broken hand, and she collapsed to the ground.

"Dammit!" Leyunso yelled. She kicked at a nearby rock, sending it clattering. "Almost.  _Almost._ "

Next moment, the woman was at her side. A cold hand on her shoulder pulled away some of the pain.

"Xelloss, you fool ... " Leyunso helped her sit up. "Listen. Valgarv is not around. Give me the hell gem, or would you like Valgarv to get it?"

Why would he ... maybe he wanted to get to Luke, or Milina ... she didn't know. She never knew enough.

So she handed it over to someone who did.

Right then, a tremor ran through the mountain, startling Leyunso.

"Oh my, looks like someone wants to collapse the lower area," Xelloss drawled somewhere in the distance.

"I do not have to go," Leyunso said, and in a regretful tone, she added, "I can use my power on Xelloss."

She stood up, ready to leave. Filia almost grabbed her arm but remembered not to use her searing hands. "Wait. What side is Xelloss on? Is going along with Shabranigdu part of their plan?"

"I have time to talk. I do not have to find Zelas or Valgarv. Think, Filia." Leyunso squeezed her shoulder once. "I'm not sorry to leave you."

For a while, Filia did not know how long, she remained alone in the silent darkness. Numbness threatened to crawl over her, but she couldn't give into that. The tremors stopped after a while, but she couldn't pick up that wisp of earth's flow again.

When Xelloss reappeared, a swarm of devils surrounded him.

"Well, that was interesting, wasn't it?" Xelloss said pleasantly. "Alas, we have to wrap up everything."

Xelloss picked her up by the arm and warped space.

They reappeared in a brightly lit hall, where he dropped her on the floor. She landed on her left hand and curled up, biting back a scream.

She stayed where she was, blinking against the light. It was the scent of scorched flesh that cued her in of her location, the hall they'd passed before.

Surrounding her were several other dragons and elves, many of them bleeding and some no longer breathing.

"I've never had a chance to taste this much dragon miasma at once," a nearby devil said. "You took all the thunder in the Devil's Descent War. No wonder, they're bland but they produce so much."

"It comes with the age, mister Rashat," Xelloss said. "They have different perception of time and a lot of things to remember and lose. Force them into the here and now and they're nutritious."

"That's why you saved them," said some devil in pope form, grinning. "Our army can use this banquet as a motivator."

Xelloss held up his hands, palms up. "Of course they could. Not that such a thing would have occurred to  _you_ at the time. I do hope you can keep them contained, it'd be such a bother if I had to return to raise my finger while my lord needs me."

"What?" Rashat sputtered. "Will you drop that already?"

Xelloss trailed off with polite insults, chatting up with his colleagues. Only them, they ignored all the lesser devils.

Filia had never been around so many devils, her holy senses screamed for her to eradicate them, but she could not act on that. Her head still bled, her hands were useless and her tail must have something torn. She stayed put, every second she lived longed counted. Did it?

A devil in woman's form passed by the arguing devils, and they bowed to her. On the physical plane she appeared a statuesque aristocrat in fur coat with trailing pale hair, but on the astral plane she was a horrifying mermaid with two lower bodies coming together in a humanoid face.

This devil stopped shortly before Ragradia's statue. Filia pushed up on her elbows to get a better look.

Only now did she realize Lyos was here. A Raugnut Rushavna spell hampered his flow and claimed half his body. On the astral plane, his emerging dragon form had disintegrated back into the visceral blob it had been before. Despite what had to be pure agony, he sat on his knees and kept the weaker devils away with raw energy.

"Hello, Lyos," said the devil.

"Milady?" Lyos was stunned for a few seconds, then he scowled. "You liar ... you are Dalphin."

"Both are right, my boy," she said, kneeling down to run a hand over his cheek. Where her fingers passed, the flesh rotted. Lyos's power flared up, but in this chaotic state it misfired. Dalphin just shifted away, one step for her human form and her whole astral body.

"Still angry, dear Lyos? That emotion never got you anywhere but in my arms." The devils around them snickered.

"What do you want with me?" he snapped.

"Oh come now. We seek to possess you, as we always have. I might try it myself, but I shall have to wait for what lord Shabranigdu says."

"I'm afraid that may take a while. He has run into the Sage of Siephied and fled," Xelloss said.

Dalphin turned. "That is peculiar. I should inquire why he fears her so."

"Do so," Xelloss said. "In the meantime, you might also request we keep several of these dragons alive?"

Xelloss shifted a few meters away and pierced a humanoid dragon through the shoulder, levering him up at the tip of his staff. When his head rolled back, Filia recognized Milgazia.

"This is one of the leaders of the north dragon tribe. I was interested in seeing whether anyone could drive him to insanity and how that would affect, well ... his sense of humor."

"Would you like to reserve this dragon too?" Dalphin asked.

"No, lord Deep Sea Dalphin. Please, no. Not my flavor, but I want to be there to see the end results. Who knows, he may also say a few interesting things about the army's plans and what's been up with Ragradia's power. He knew Ragradia, once."

"Can I have him?" Grau asked. "I specialize in faith issues."

Xelloss tossed Milgazia to him. "Be my guest."

"Will someone please go find lord Dark Star?" Deep Sea Dalphin asked. "I do not believe we'll be able to put off disobeying our lord's specific orders for much longer."

"Lord Dynast is already searching for him," Grau said.

"I'd prefer someone more competent go. Rashat."

"As you wish, my lord," he said.

Dalphin turned to Xelloss. "You may want to go find your lord, I presume?"

"Yes. Where can I put my dragon? Will we move location or stay here?" Xelloss asked.

"We will stay here for now. Take one of those cells we saw below, I shall tell my troops which dragons are on reserve."

"Thank you, lord Deep Sea Dalphin. I will return as soon as I've found my lord."

He picked Filia up by her neck. "Let's go see how nice the cells of your kind are, hmm?"

**· · · · · · ·**

The cell he brought her to had been designed for sentenced humanoid dragons The floor had handcuffs chained to them and magic that kept casting and teleportation impossible, now upgraded with devil energy.

Xelloss dropped her to her knees and chained her hands down, no regarding for the pain it caused. He probably ate it.

"Nothing to say, miss Filia?"

Val needed help ... she couldn't give help. She could ask Xelloss.

Nothing to fight for now.

"How can you?" Filia whispered, despite herself.

It wasn't a real question. She knew he how could, but she just didn't understand in what manner they existed? It was easy to imagine to empty eyed lesser devils as evil, but not when devils were like Xelloss and Deep Sea Dalphin. So lifelike. How could they be like that yet not understand what they destroyed?  _How can you be just like them yet also just like us, Xelloss?_

Xelloss placed a finger on his chin and feigned a thoughtful expression. "How can I? Well, it is my nature and I have plenty of motivation, do I not? I was made to strive for the world's end and I must feed, and honestly, I introduce myself as trickster priest. That is how I can."

A chorus of devil voices joined in, tonal, animalistic and words. Somehow the idea he had this little audience spiked her rage, but she refused to act on it. All that would do was satisfy him.

"When you've been betrayed by your mentor, why are you feeling betrayed when  _I_ do it? You've loathed me from the start."

She narrowed her eyes. "It's just that I thought you had a different plan, Xelloss. Something smarter than  _this_  mess."

Eyebrow twitch.

And then there was a narrow cone pinning her tail to the floor. She cried out shortly, but bit her jaws together. She wasn't going down like this ... it was already bad enough that he could read every fear in her soul ... eat it.

Xelloss started pacing around her.

"I will admit that our situation with Lei Magnus is considerably out of hand. But I truly don't think a dragon such as you is in any position to comment," he said with a chuckle. "Nor to feel betrayed about it. Or did you think it meant something that I obliged your silly trade? That was a whim, not a sign of worth."

The cone in her tail angled sideways; there was no getting used to physical pain. Every new thing felt worse than the last. Another thing sank in, she'd been lucky up until now to have walked past so much without a scar. She'd have them now, if she survived at all.

"Think, miss Filia, I know there must be some rational thought in your little head," Xelloss said, tapping her forehead. "You seem to have a grandiose idea about your worth. I remember your surprise when the Elder made it clear seven years ago he would not trade for you. He must have been annoyed with you, because he pointed out he would not before he said he could not. Did you really think you were worth the world?"

No, she wasn't taking this lying down. "I thought you'd have gotten it open anyway, at that moment, and I thought he'd known that much. I'm not worth the world, I never thought so. You're the last I'd have to tell."

He locked eyes with her for a moment, warning in them more so than hate. Filia had come close to saying something she should not, but before she could wonder, he continued.

"The only thing you were worth were a few extra words to ensure you were hurt. What a fitting end to all our debates about how violent dragons are, wasn't it? I needn't say a word, it was all you pleading for your Elder to admit my point."

Of course. It had all just been extra spice. He'd won their debate about the violence of dragons as a bonus to riling her up till she cast a spell.

"It's pretty funny though, you were willing to risk the world for your feeling of justice, back when you refused to attack Valgarv at the world's end."

"I couldn't—"

"Yes, you could. You just refused on base of your feelings. Don't lie now, miss Filia."

Right then, he did something she could not place in him, be it at his best or his worst. He ran his hand down her hair, what was left of it.

"Let's continue talking once I'm back."

He vanished. In his place appeared a misty devil without recognizable form, flowing around her like water.

"Courtesy of the lady of the sea," it whispered. Then it was gone too.

_Think, Filia._

The strange gesture remained in her mind, until she remembered the one time he'd done it before. Here in this same temple, when he'd run his hand through her hair to clean the muck out of it.

The cries in the distance were too loud, and though the light was dim, it became unpleasant. The pain in her hands worsened by the second. Her skin felt every grain on the stone floor and the cold drove in like a thousand needles. When she tried to stand, she fell over — it was hard to tell where her limbs were. She could only bear the touch of the floor for seconds, she had to stand.

That devil had placed a curse on her, but she had nary the space to think about that.

_Trickster._

If he wanted to hurt her where it hit hardest, he'd find her family and friends. Miss Luna, who Zelas could track down, would be the first to show up. He hadn't said a word about them, and Zelas was curiously absent.

The temple of the ancients?

Back at the temple of the ancients ... ranting about his intentions was uncharacteristic. He'd done it then.

A devil neared her, sending agony up her devil sense. It didn't touch her, just went round the walls to light lamps or ... something ... it was hard to see, she couldn't bear to keep her eyes open.

Seeing ...

Xelloss as an astral being would have been able to see that the shield was fueled by the weapon itself, so distinct from regular magic due to not relying on the astral flows. Knowing him, he'd account for the possibility of having to use fusion magic. On top of that, Xelloss with his magical senses and sharp mind would have realized the same as Lina : her Elder had come to kill everyone, Filia included. It made no sense to take someone hostage against the one trying to kill this person.

_If you move, your life is lost._

Lost to whom? Lost how? Lost when?

When Xelloss spoke, everything only meant exactly what he said and no more. He hadn't said he would kill her, he had put up a scheme to get a specific response from her.

Just like today.

That simple word trick stood out clearly now, but it offered no comfort. Xelloss had no choice when he was under orders, true, but he'd never told her what exactly his orders were. Without that detail, she could not tell what was his own choice. That kept her doubting, and it kept the power in his hands. Or Zelas's.

She'd always been his little puppet. So she wasn't going to end up sacrificed like Laust. Xelloss intended to get the response he needed, and then he would clean up.

And every time, he just defaulted to the vilest way to get what he wanted. Just one sick game after another.

Then, antagonize her with the benefit of winning their little game. Regardless of her suffering, right as they stood in the scene of a genocide.

Today, break her for the sake of keeping up his act. Regardless of anyone's suffering, right as they were surrounded by massacre.

No, she did not think she was worth the world, or even the unveiling of his act if that meant Luna and others would die. But she didn't actually know what the stakes were, and nobody would tell her. They had seven years to devise a better way and find out what their options were.

Zelas and Xelloss were just lesser evils. What would happen if Xelloss learned she wouldn't be fun anymore?

She set all her anger on him, and so she could avoid thinking about whom the greater evil owed their freedom to. Her son.

**· · · · · · ·**


	27. Zelas's Adaption

**· · · · · · ·**

"You see Zelas and that angel here," Leyunso said. "You see me here."

In silence and ready to shoot or flee, Zelas followed the Sage of Siephied as she brainwashed their way out of the area.

"You all see me and that angel and Zelas here. It is a good idea to talk about this time."

Zelas didn't understand why she bothered. They really didn't see them, so why brainwash them? What? How ...

She would have gone ahead, not needing Leyunso anymore, but Leyunso had claimed doing so was safe. It clearly was not safe, to Zelas stayed with her.

Milina held the hell gem, all her focus on its dim connection to Luke. They spoke quietly, with Milina assuring him over and over that she was alright and no, don't try to leave hell. Megiddo wouldn't allow it anyway.

Milina explained to Luke about Leyunso's curse and claimed she was Siephied. Where Milina had gotten that idea, Zelas didn't know. Maybe Leyunso had denied being Siephied, or she had misheard something about how Sages work.

_Maybe she really is Siephied and told you this, then said she made a statement about her identity._

That was a rational idea that Zelas could entertain, but no, it wasn't real. Leyunso had been young then, and Zelas was overcautious.

Milina eventually got tired of telling Luke the same thing over and over and hung up. She pocketed the gem and tapped Leyunso on the shoulder.

"Why don't you just tell them they are individuals?" Milina asked.

"Ah yes. That's safe when Zelas is here. I like to take risks."

"Hmm."

Even if someone knew of Leyunso's effect, it still worked. It just ... Leyunso was only a human, she should be weak and insignificant. Yet she was likely the reason Valgarv had left so abruptly. He knew about her too ... how much did he know? How much did Leyunso know?

Zelas spent the time it took to escape the mountains fretting over that. The snail's pace did not help; they were limited to Leyunso's human steps. A few times they made short teleportation jumps, for which Leyunso used local magic or what Milina could offer.

The further they got away from the distortion of flow, the longer their jumps became.

"We're safe now, aren't we?" Milina asked when they appeared at the southern edge of the mountains.

"You're wrong," Leyunso said.

Barely had she uttered this, did Zelas stop projecting and shoot as far away as possible.

She reemerged on an empty acre in Dills. In solitude, she let herself come to rest. Hunching down, she dug her hands in the dirt, clinging at the for her distant physical world.

Shabranigdu's commands on her mind would never be something she had peace with, but she had thought she'd been used to it. Not so. Just ... words. Only words. He just had to make her understand what he demanded and she did it, regardless of sense or will.

She did not know whether Leyunso was better or worse. She could not command her, but she could affect her understanding of herself in a more severe way. Belief.

In her world yet to come, there would be nobody with such power over her.

She sensed Milina's holiness more than she saw her. The angel projected before her, eyes harsh and anger in her emotions.

"They caught Lyos and Filia. What will you do now?" Milina asked.

"I do not know ... they will not be killed, not yet. Valgarv has a cover to keep that will be blown if he ousts me just like this, but if he obtains Luna with the angelsblood talisman, he will not have to say a word. Dalphin will figure out whose magic is in her chain soon enough. Worse, I do not want to find out what he plans to do with Claire."

"So you're just leaving them there?"

Zelas didn't deign the obvious worth a reply. She left, even though she'd have liked longer to regain composure.

**· · · · · · ·**

Zelas had a limited headstart on Xelloss and meant to use it. Xelloss would be stuck with the conflicting orders of going to Zoana and waiting for more details, so he had an excuse to get out of Valgarv's range by saying,  _I need to find my liege the Beast Monarch_. It would become suspicious when it took him long, but that could not be avoided. Valgarv knew where Luna and Claire were and might soon devise an excuse to collect her.

That's assuming they hadn't been collected by the gods yet.

Arriving at Zoana's flimsy capital exposed her to assuring chaos. Half the excuse for a castle had been wrecked, most likely due to Valgarv and Luna. Zoana was still being wrecked, actually, but the current battle had moved outside the city. Luna's sporadic projecting of dragon parts stood out from a distance — well then, she had survived.

Quite spectacularly, in fact, given the astral traces of angels that lay around. What had been a flock, Luna had reduced to a mere three.

Angels tended to not be very powerful. With gods being able to reach far through the flow, they were superfluous entities. Rangort was the only one to really bother with them and e had them work in groups. Certain that Luna could handle the remaining three, Zelas made finding Claire her priority.

After watching the movement of the angels for a while, she concluded they tried to bypass her to reach the palace. Right then, Claire would be there.

Zelas projected within the palace, if it deserved to be called that. For some reason, the astral plane was nigh impossible to observe and the natural flow oddly dimmed.

Barely a few steps in, a tiny demon ran screeching down the hall. At least, Zelas assumed it was some sort of demon, since it was no nature spirit. Most of it was a giant mask with tiny arms and legs, which waved frantically.

Was it threatening her?

"With whom do I have the honor?" Zelas asked.

"I am the mighty Zoamelgustar! You are not allowed to pass me, or you shall face my terrible wrath!"

Zelas quirked an eyebrow. "May I point out your sentence construction does not add up? You say I will face your wrath if I  _were_ allowed to pass."

"Eh ... "

How eloquent.

"Are you responsible for this obfuscation?" she said, waving at the astral plane behind Zoamelgustar.

"The mighty Zoamelgustar was only inspired by the Claire Bible a little," e shrieked, flailing tiny arms. "Absolutely!"

"I am an ally of the Claire Bible, would you be so kind as to show me to her?"

"Tel al-Metaliom."

"It is mine," Zelas said, entertaining the notion that this might be a trap, she might need to flee, what if Luna or another had arranged something—

"This way, wolf pack." Zoamelgustar gestured a tiny hand down the floor.

Zelas misprojected part way through a wall due to the obscured area. After ridding herself of the gravel, she looked around.

Against a wall, a blue haired child sat with a wounded angel in her lap. Claire, Zelas presumed, and what once had been an elf. The scene had all of those religious paintings in churches, a perfect image of a god's mercy, and an image only. Claire did not feel for the one she protected, only a aimless drive and mild annoyance surrounded her. That annoyance increased when she looked up at Zelas.

"Well met, Aqualord. I find you have told a lowly demon our password," she said, tapping Zoamelgustar with the tip of her shoes.

"It was of use and no great harm" Claire said. "We would have taken him if we had to leave, but for now, he proved useful for my attempt at a hollow — I do believe he is a chaos child."

"Hmm. Well, you may forsake this route, for I am come to take you away," Zelas said. "Discard that angel, I will suffer no risks."

"When Luna kills them, they don't go back to hell," she muttered. "There is nothing but lifeless energy and an empty soul ... when she does it."

"This would be a problem how, lady Claire? Correct me if I am wrong, but angels have a limited sense of clairvoyance, no? Where ever you go, they will call in aid," Zelas said.

"I know, I know," she said. "I thought like you did, before, but to Lyos it was so natural that we would spare people. It's a different logic to mine. Do we really need to? Did Laust need to stop existing?"

"No such time to argue here and now, lady Claire."

"I can tell what is happening in Kataart right now," Claire said. "We could have avoided this if we did not handle matters in such a lethal way. Thinning out our allies—if Laust had been around we could have sent him in with Leyunso. As the Knight of Shabranigdu, he is immune where you are not, and with her aid—"

"Oh? Do you believe this angel will be of use to us?"

She said nothing.

With one step ahead, Zelas scooped away Claire. Holding her under her arm, aimed a finger and burned up the angel until its identity fell apart. The soul slipped into Megiddo, but there was no person attached. Then she dropped Claire and walked to the nearest hole in the walls.

"Lady Corpse, stop playing around!" she hollered out.

"We could have contained the angels, Luna has the power for it, but she won't use it," Claire said, perhaps a little huffy. "We are handling our allies the wrong way."

Growing a personality after all, or just rigid adherence to poorly defined programming?

Contrary to her, Luna had an inconvenient excess of personality. When the Knight of Siephied jumped into the room, her aura poured into every crevice of the planes. The indifferent warrior on the brink of sickness had passed; living in happy, nutritious Sailoon had done wonders on her and the thrill of the hunt perked her up. Yet despite this, there was enough concern to keep her holiness from cutting it all away. Only now that Luna was unoccupied did her indifference return.

"Heeey ... look who is here. What do you want, doggie?"

"Valgarv now owns two hosts of Shabranigdu. The only reason you and I will see the end of the day is if Valgarv cannot find a way to reveal us without revealing his own plans. I've come to take you and Claire to Wolfpack Island. Did you ensure none of these angels sent a message to the others?"

Luna shrugged. "Didn't care to."

"Then we must leave all the sooner," Zelas said. "I presume mister Dilgear is still with you? Call him, we have no time to waste."

"Can't leave," Luna said, pointing into the palace garden. There stood the beginning of a holy beacon, similar to the one she had built at her home. "Gotta pop over to Kataart for a bit, then we can take a vacation."

"If you hope to allow miss Filia to teleport out of Kataart, you will be disappointed to learn that magic exists to prevent teleportation out of certain regions. Lady Claire, if you would please make yourself useful and retrieve the third member of this party?"

Claire actually got to her feet for that, grew wings and was off.

Not through the door, fortunately, since said door burst open to reveal Martina. A dramatic finger pointed at Luna.

"You! How dare you! You were our guest and you vowed a sacred oath on Zoamelgustar you would not be like your foul sister! Now look at my kingdom!"

Zangulus stood at her shoulder, nervously tugging her cape and being ignored when he told her not to piss off the deities, please, we don't want to die today.

"Anyway," Zelas said, "There shall be no debate, miss Luna. We will leave. I have no issue forcing you, so the choice on  _how_  we leave is yours."

"Do not ignore me!" Martina roared. "Zoamelgustar's wrath will smite thee!"

"How are your kidnapping plans gonna unfold when everyone and their granny can be asked about my battle here? This is Zoana. The only thing this place trades with other kingdoms is wild stories and gossip," Luna said, but it lacked force. Good. On some level she still respected their difference in power.

"And that they will receive," Zelas said. With a dramatic twirl, she turned to Martina.

Bowing a slight little, she said, "Do accept my apologies, your royal highness. Miss Luna Inverse ran away from my supervision, it shall not happen again. Out of respect for Zoamelgustar, allow me to restore the palace."

"You better make it neat!" Martina demanded.

"It will be perfect." And very much not credible once the gossip spread. Martina could be relied on to embellish it to make herself a grand persona in it, and it'd pass as Zoana talk.

Zelas grew her wings in human form, spreading them out as her focus of magic. As long as she looked at what she did physically, she could employ the superior senses of her mind on concord with it. Down to the dust on the floor, she could piece together what it ought to be.

Telekinesis took concentration since it involved expended broad energy beyond the self, but she could handle it within the range of her true expanse. The world was a puzzle of a myriad tiny piece. She took just a little pride in her ability to govern the physical, and so she added features to the Zoana mansion more worth of a castle. The tapestries were sturdier, the wood less brittle, the stones carved to fit without mortar, which she directed to fill holes elsewhere.

"I could have used this time to play some more," Luna said.

"Had you not made a show, I would not be cleaning up here," Zelas snarled under her breath.

When Zoamelgustar shuffled by and mumbled that he could have done this, Martina declared that it was polite to let guests pay their respects. Zangulus kept giving Zelas odd looks.

Zelas let them be, signing Luna to follow her out the gate.

Luna lingered, looking around and whistling. She ran her hands over the smooth pillars of the gate, gave a soft kick against the wood.

"Damn it, I gotta give it to you, this is neat work," Luna said. "Shouldn't being so constructive hurt you as a devil?"

"I'm not an ordinary devil any more," Zelas said, smug despite her intention. "That said, one must understand construction for optimal destruction."

"Guess that makes you the most dangerous devil," Luna said.

In the courtyard, Claire helped Dilgear lug a bag. Said bag was dropped once the hybrid noticed Luna.

"Luna, you won!" Dilgear cheered.

"Of course I did," Luna said. "The angels anyway. Not her. She's here to kidnap us. You better have packed everything."

He held up a bag, grinning.

"You have things now?"

"Graciously donated by the court of Zoana," Luna said.

"Of course," Zelas said. She led them to a place less visible, between a few trees in a park. Most citizens had evacuated after the battle was over, but from the distance the restoration of the palace was all too visible. Crowds swarmed out to observe the miracle.

On the balcony of the tiny palace, Martina appeared to proclaim Zoamelgustar had blessed her and the feared Luna Inverse had been defeated. Zelas slipped into the crowd and made a point of commenting how she thought the name of the Enemy Of All Who Live was Lina Inverse. Just the right kind of confusion.

When she rejoined the three, she had half expected Luna to flee, but no. Luna might have enough pride not to want another humiliating chase.

"Are you gonna let her get away with that, Luna?" Dilgear asked, pointing a thumb at Martina's ongoing speech.

"You bet, Spot," she said, patting him on the head. "Nobody will believe her, especially not with that wild story going round where she is the reason my little sister tamed the Lord of Nightmares."

Zelas did her very best to not shoot out of her skin about that casual remark. Whether it was Luna's words or Martina's did not matter, and should not matter, and she would be calm.

She did shoot out of her skin, but not of rage. Instead of her human form, she became a quadruped version of her wolf self. No armor or cloth, but her red mane remained long, allowing her to snatch her passengers if they dared to escape. At nearly ten meters long, they'd fit on her back.

"Warping space requires a lot of energy, I will only do it to get out of the city. After that, we fly the physical way, for I must preserve energy. I lost a lot on fighting Earthlord Rangort and freeing Lei Shabranigdu," Zelas said.

Luna ordered Dilgear to sit in front and catch the wind, she herself went behind him. Claire did not sit at all. She grew herself wings and flew above them, staying close but making no contact. Zelas did not care to ask why and did not complain, less work for her.

Where she reappeared, they might touch noctilucent clouds. The amount of spirits here was nigh nonexistent and astral beings never came here. After making sure she produced enough heat for her passengers, she seared off.

During the ride, Claire stayed close to her head and they updated their information. Claire slowly had regained connection with Lyos, now back to the point where she could once again see through his eyes. With the curse on him, teleportation would not work, but he could access rudimentary astral skills, like sight and emotional consumption — he'd used the latter to cover for Xelloss, who hadn't very much liked ruining his favorite pawn.

For her part, Zelas informed her of the encounter in hell, what went wrong, and they went over the risks of bringing them to Wolfpack Island. Dilgear found a hook to talk here, he wanted to know about whether he could fight anything and worried about the limits of his regeneration — Valgarv had done something he wasn't happy about, apparently. Unfortunately for his need to prove himself, there wasn't anything to do for him. Not against devils.

Over the hours, conversation drizzled to silence. Claire fed on the atmospheric energy itself, during which she slipped into a trancelike state. Zelas would have liked to know how exactly she had all three methods of feeding, but it wasn't likely knowledge she'd need any time soon. She'd rather not disturb her now, because they would need her divine ability to see.

Many of Zelas's court were chimera devils, who had merged with animals. A few had joined from other courts, and she had the usual legions of pure devils.

Her dark little secret was that many of the chimeras had merged with the souls of their hosts, and were traitors to existence. Not so for most of the pure devils. With the sole exception of Xelloss and five who had once willingly joined Garv, they were the enemy. She kept them for show, but now they had lost their use as warriors.

That left one use only. She could recoup her lost energy from them.

"There is my island," she said once it appeared. She began a spiral descent.

Luna leaped over Dilgear and sat on her neck. After pushing the red mane aside, she plopped on the stomach and plucked Zelas's ears. All of Zelas's warning growls were ignored.

"So I take it you can't just order them to obey?"

"Only those I created myself, which is Xelloss alone and a handful of lesser ranks," she said through gritted teeth. "Now get off my neck, lady Corpse. We need you to be a surprise for now."

"Just say I'm a prisoner. Y'know, the truth. Though usually prisoners don't gotta do their own security. Don't you have dogs for that?"

She flicked her red mane, nearly throwing Luna off. But only nearly.

"I will order them to project first. Most devils cannot withdraw their projection swiftly enough, they will be an easy target. Even one escapee can jeopardize us. Valgarv will be looking for an excuse to incriminate me. Lady Corpse, can you fly? Mister Lyos figured it out."

"Nope, but I can jump and project. I get far like that."

"Do not go into the forest yet. Any devil that will remain there will be on my side, but not all of them are informed and some are ... complicated."

"Burnination green card only counts when above the veggies. Got it."

Zelas might have given a warning if only Luna had not been offensive, but since she had, Zelas howled her call at full force. Luna yelped.

"Fine, fine, moving back," she muttered.

Howls from the island answered her.

Zelas's twelve commanders projected in a half circle above the island. Zelas kept height above them and said, "Calxirs, go down and command all my servants to project and stay in the forest."

"As you wish," the winged serpent said. He departed at once.

The others gave her a puzzled look, and she descended so they could see her three passengers.

"Arinkiau, you will take mister Dilgear here, the werewolf-troll hybrid, and bring him to my palace unharmed."

She took obeyed at once, swallowing her confusion.

The remaining ten, a few of whom chimeras and one an ex-servant of Garv, gave her very disturbed looks by now.

"From now on, only the loyal pack will inhabit this island. These two are allies and prisoners, I have yet to determine. Before I do, we will clean out my island of anyone who might betray us. I want you nine to deal with the higher ranks, while miss Luna and miss Claire here can handle some of the smaller ranks. She and I will ensure no one leaves the island."

"Nine?" asked Ingir.

"Yes, seeing as I know you are on speaking terms with Dynast Grauscherrer," Zelas said before spitting an energyball at him. He went up in flames. "The rest of you, go to work. Further explanation will follow."

Seven of them grew a healthy blood thirst, one of them was anxious, and one was horrified. She killed that one too.

Luna pulled at her sword. "Can I go now?"

"Yes, but keep Claire close for instructions and safety. Understood?"

Luna kicked her ear. "Heard you the first time."

She jumped off, while Claire spread her wings and flew towards a plateau, from hence she would coordinate Luna. Zelas instructed her loyal commanders that she would be kept safe, and her suggestions listened to.

**· · · · · · ·**

Zelas had half expected Luna to fall through the trees sooner or later, but she kept in the air the entire time through use of projections to stand on. Ah well, one less distraction while Zelas sorted through her legions. She consumed the survivors through taking their energy and torturing the right emotions out, left the escapers not worth chasing to Luna, and within a little over an hour she had stabilized her injuries, though it would take a few more days to be whole again.

This mingled with judgment, a tedious process of figuring out which chimeras had truly developed and embraced the instinct to survive. She needed soldiers, so for them she took the risk to figure it out.

Just as she got the hang of it, a few hours in, Arinkiau approached her with a bow.

"Speak."

"My esteemed Beast Monarch, the Knight of Siephied has just left her position and is headed for the shore. The hill ranks say something strange is happening with the sea."

Zelas dropped her prey at once. "Finish him off, I shall handle this."

She rose above the canopy, high enough to see the sea defy the tides. A circular cloud had formed over an alcove beach and poured down water even as mist joined it above. Magic ... Luna had been building a beacon in Zoana. Right.

Claire was at the same place where she'd been left, on a green spot on the central plateau, legs crossed in a meditative pose. Her guards were in station, minus Luna.

Zelas landed with force, creating a shockwave that hurled the tiny humanoid off her rock, into the shrubbery.

"What on earth and beyond are you doing?" Zelas roared.

Claire crawled up from the bush and stared up at Zelas. Though she had fear, the resolve was stronger.

"Lyos and Filia and Milgazia and everyone in Kataart needs to be are only doing your best for yourself, I must do it for others."

"I will make a plan once I have more options and more strength."

In one move, the little girl changed into a woman close to Zelas's height. "We don't know what will happen in that time. Stop being cautious and move."

"Ah, the walking, talking bible admits her limits." She raised a hand and flicked her on the forehead with enough force to throw her back. "I begin to believe it is a universal law that gods must being either dramatic or dramatically boring."

Claire lacked the capacity for true anger, so the act harvested was irritation. She shrunk to her old lady form, eyes closed and lips drawn. Zelas did like it when those she handled acknowledged their place.

"You don't know better. You're just as broken as us, Zelas. You are a devil who loves existing even as you feel the need to end the world. Chaos as these times define it is not the same as chaos as it was called in the days of yore. The void is absolute order, because everything is exactly the same. Who are you fooling, Zelas? Do you think that you're ordained by Chaos, so everything that isn't your doing will fall in place?"

"Who are you yourself fooling? The Sea of Chaos isn't empty at all as long as she thinks. The Lord of Nightmares is—"

Claire shrugged. "She is not caring."

"Do you really want to convince me She does not? Then I should kill you now, for I am a devil and you are a god."

Claire froze.

Zelas left her there and used her sharp nose to track down Luna.

Luna had made it to the shore, where she had encountered opposition. One of these days Zelas would have to be there to see more than the end of her battles, just to gauge her skill.

Those of her victims that had been chimera left behind piles of blood and bones; much to Zelas's surprise, as she had assumed Luna a clean fighter. Luna herself was in the middle of finishing a dragon sized beast, the last one standing.

The sea itself rose onto the beach, brimming with white magic. One step into it and Luna would be gone. Zelas could not see how Claire could arrange this from so far, but then again, the flow was nigh untouchable for her.

Zelas expanded her own darkness quietly, chasing off the spirits in service of the gods and infecting the white magic. The sea didn't rise anymore, and the cloud turned to normal rain.

Luna hadn't noticed yet. She was on the brink of victory, albeit a messy one : she went for the whole dramatic climb and neck stab. That alone didn't kill a part astral chimera, so she set it on fire.

Luna's power hadn't diminished much, but she had become sloppy — ah right, she must not have slept between Valgarv, angels and the clean up. She had a human body after all.

When the body collapsed into the sands and Luna sank to her knees on its back, leaning on the hilt of the blade.

Zelas manifested with her wings wide.

Dazed, Luna looked up. When she froze, it wasn't the stock still pose of Claire, but the very human wide eyes and falter in motion. "Oh dammit, you're here already."

When the last spasm died, Luna found the sword stuck. She stayed there, clutching the hilt.

Zelas landed before her in her truest form, albeit short enough to look at her face to face. With Luna's damp hair clinging to her skin, her eyes were visible.

"You were not swift enough, or did you genuinely believe I had my guard down only because you did not run before?"

Shame was a favorite flavor of Zelas, tinged with fear it was delicious.

Zelas closed her claws around Luna's arm, meaning to remove her hand, but Luna astrally lashed a wing at her.

"Miss Luna, whether you like it not, you are already in my pack. If you step out of your place in the hierarchy, you shall be paid as any of my wolves are." She raised a wing around her, both stopping the rain and preventing her escape route.

"I don't belong to anyone's pack," she snapped. "Unless  _I_  decide to make one, and you wouldn't be in it."

Zelas gave her a toothy grin, grabbed the sword's hilt and tore it away. Luna had to invoke her projection to keep a grip on it, but nearly toppled ahead. Bracing her free hand against Zelas's shoulder armor, she leaned closer.

"I am not your wolf, I am not Siephied, I am human. I will always stand beyond gods and devils no matter what word tricks and power play you use."

"Oh, truly? I use word tricks and power play? Miss Luna, humans are not the only ones that stand between the astral creatures. Werewolves and any other form of beast folk do as well. Save for their genes, they share all cognitive ability with humans, yet you value your humanity? The concept is more frail than the touchable hierarchy of my island."

Zelas let go of the sword and shifted her projection a few meters away. Luna toppled forward, hands first into the sand. She was on her feet in seconds, sword drawn.

Luna estimated, longer than usual, then she lowered the sword. "I already did play, didn't I?"

Zelas nodded once.

"Alright, now what? Any particular pack duties I gotta know about?" she said with a heavy dose of sarcasm.

"There are none, other than that I expect you to keep the lady Claire safe, as you already have been doing," Zelas said.

Luna shrugged. "So, can I at least know what the hell is gonna happen? The world gonna end anytime soon?"

"Oh no, I would prefer to rule it, and I shall under the providence of chaos," Zelas said, flicking her tail in the way of an irritated cat.

"Really?" Luna asked. "How come?"

"I also want to destroy it, but I choose to ignore those instincts," Zelas added. "See it as a reverse of the need of every other creature to live : at times existence becomes so unbearable they want to die despite their instincts. The need to exist and to end are firm, but not an unbreakable law."

"You're not answering my question, just reciting vague facts. I wanna know why you're like that?"

She doesn't really know. Oh, she could trace down her own changes and her past thoughts, but why she and not others ... "Can you tell me why you are the way you are?"

Luna shook her head, and for a moment Zelas found sorrow in her emotional scapes. Just a moment, then Luna denied the feeling to herself. She didn't even realize it.

"Let's go back, you can have a room."

**· · · · · · ·**

The reformation of Wolfpack Island became an impromptu feast. Only other devils could provide such a pure meal of negative emotions; what little positive they could feel in sadism didn't surface when they were tortured. They could not hope, they loved none, and they had enough hatred for the whole world. Soon, miasma was so thick that Zelas could retreat into her palace and still feed.

Luna had been given a hefty dose of alcohol and a sedative, and given a luxurious room with no doors or windows. Should she get out, it would be noticeable just from the sound.

And Dilgear hadn't been given a room. Zelas had steered him towards chimera that he might find a place with, as they had some troll blood. Luna hadn't even thought about him.

From a distance, she observed her pack. Projecting as a human, the aristocrat this time, she lounged on a balcony with a wide sofa, sipping the wine that this projection was programmed to enjoy. For now, all she could do was wait until Xelloss showed up. She did not want to think about why he might not.

Xelloss didn't join her that night, but Claire did. In her middle aged form, hunched in a cloak not of her own making, she sat on the edge of the balcony. For a long time, they watched the wilderness together.

"Now that Valgarv has two pieces of Shabranigdu and the demonsblood talisman, what am I supposed to become, if I can be a god at all?"

"I thought you had plans to be a better deity than before, or did Xelloss misunderstand you?"

She shook her head. "He was not wrong, at the time. However, I cannot be a good leader to anyone. I died exactly because I fancied myself such a grand deity."

Zelas flicked a piece of her cigarette away. "The last part is new. How does this relate to deities?"

"I realized a lot of our plan went wrong because we did not consider the physically weaker assets to our plan worthy of knowing it," she said. "And that's what—"

"I have heard this sort alr—"

"Don't interrupt me!" Claire snapped, the closest to anger she'd ever gotten. "I was not yet done. When I realized that I meant to pour everything into Lyos. My mistake was that I said so to Luna, intent to tell her as well, and right then Valgarv came out and cut off my ability to communicate.  _We too_  are the weaker assets of his grand plan. It doesn't matter that you and Luna are physically strong, he had the monopoly on power because of the cognitive reins he holds."

Zelas stood up, striding to her side. "That may be an unexpected truth, but I do not see how it would disqualify you from being a better god."

"A better deity," she said. "A deity in the sense that we tend to the world, for better or worse. I do not know enough. I've judged wrongly before and my drive has led me to protect someone I should have recognized as an enemy. I cannot wholly rely on my own judgment."

Zelas blew out a thick cloud of smoke, and didn't know what to make of this. People never came to her for answers, yet Claire held the hope she'd hear something worthwhile. This little god here, who now underestimated her own potential thanks to Valgarv.

"I do say, Valgarv has planted doubt in you."

"I reached my conclusion independent of him."

"Then be independent and learn from where you erred. Is this not a saying among mortals?"

"You couldn't understand. I do not know how to learn because I cannot put my finger on how he got me so attached that even when he attacked me, I kept my tongue. I do not know enough about relationships or myself."

"Then do not entertain such relationships anymore, you cannot afford them anyway."

"No, I must understand in order to do things as well as I can. I have to manage life, Zelas, and I have to become at least decent at everything. My future task is far more complicated than your little hierarchy of sadism and rebellion."

"Well then," Zelas said. She flicked out her cigarette and poured the wine away. "Why do you sit here, if you need no affirmation for that?"

"You are my ally, it would serve us both if you would learn to listen to our advice."

"Ha! The advice broken persons with dead divinity to them? Neither of you know who you really are, while I know my precise nature and position in this world. I practice caution, survival and strategy."

"You also practice pride, and it has you neglect to see how any social behavior more complex than a world pack factors into survival. You are not dealing with sentient wolves, but sapient allies and enemies. You at least know that I have a weakness, and seek to leave it behind. You do not look at yourself."

Zelas couldn't stop the twitch in her lips. Never mind the accusations of pride. Talk of self administered personality adjustments soured her appreciation of anyone.

"Beast Monarch, listen. I have to what I must. If I come in a situation and Valgarv presents me another lie, ... I do not want to fail myself and the world again. If you won't question yourself, at the very least give me another perspective on our common enemy."

Zelas turned, leaning her arms on the balustrade. Letting her head drop back, she looked at the stars. The center of the galaxy formed a pale path right above them.

"Are you afraid you might be tempted to his path?"

"Yes, in a way."

No harm in this.

"Knowing what I have seen and what Xelloss told me ... he wants the ultimate narcissist dream : a world without free will, where everyone gives him the reflection he wants. When he speaks of the end of suffering, those are merely words to dress it up. We know war will not end with the disappearance of devils and gods. He has seen it, we have seen it. However, Volphied is capable of compelling one such as Dark Star to serve her purpose, even if only to spite Her. Valgarv takes it further by removing the way She dreamed this world."

"Oh?" Claire said, and nothing more. "That does make it easier. I was his mirror, a tool. I still am. He is a priority to kill not only for being tied to Shabranigdu then."

"No desire for revenge, I presume," Zelas said. "Do you desire anything at all?"

"Do you not then? We both have goals, don't we?"

"We have them for different reasons. I would enjoy ruling the world, but I have no particular desire to plunge it into despair. I want safety, I want to exist without constant safeguarding against my enemies, without needing a web of lies or I die. I want those I hate to go down in flames, I want to survive and why not have fun while I do it? You understand fun at least, do you not?"

"No, not really. It doesn't matter, you made your point. Valgarv wants mirrors, you want a playground."

This was tougher than expected, no wonder Xelloss had such a hard time even convincing her to do anything. "Do you dislike anything?"

Now she took her turn leaning back to look at the stars. She raised a hand and painted invisible forms in them.

"Sometimes I dislike that I have to help others," Claire added, after some hesitation. "I help others because of an obsessive thought that became me. Not because I feel for anyone. I have to. I can't tell whether I want to, or whether a difference between needing to and wanting exists for creatures such as I. Would it be like that, if Valgarv took over?"

Or maybe this could be worked with. "Probably. He would want genuine emotions if he retains the qualities of an emotion eater, so the life he crafts would retain some self awareness. It is not a simple case of erasing all sapience. He would craft sapience to serve him. Perhaps that is why Volphied and Dugradigdu took to him : he aligned so well with them, they did not need to craft and alter much."

"Or maybe it would just be like when your creators order you devils," Claire said, a strange glint in her eyes. "How do I know whether you are not ensnaring me in certain ideas yourself?"

"You do not," Zelas said, but it left her with an eerie feeling. If even Claire starting to be aware of the grand game, then she had just spoken about herself freely. She couldn't be sure anymore where all the power lay.

**· · · · · · ·**


	28. Xelloss's Breach

**· · · · · · ·**

Xelloss was out of excuses to  _not_  be looking for his liege on Wolfpack Island. On the upside, brainstorming had produced an idea how to deal with the rather unfortunate Kataart situation. All he needed was the word of his liege.

Wolfpack Island held one palace and several mansions, as well as a vast wilderness. Where his liege would be at any given moment was impossible to tell. She might lounge as royalty or sprint through the dirt with her wolves. His best shot at finding her was to ask who had seen her.

Just as he crossed the mountains that surrounded the island's edge, he met someone, though it was no devil. Wide wings, Claire rose from the forest and sped across the slope. Perfect, assuming her clairvoyance worked here, she would know.

"Hello, miss Claire. Would you know where to find my liege the Beast Monarch? It is urgent."

"Oh. Come along," she said lightly.

A tiny grove and minute later, Xelloss realized she hadn't said yes, but by then he was firmly locked under the arm of Luna Inverse. She'd hate to hear it, but she really took after her little sister in this respect. Unless of course Lina had learned the chokehold from Luna.

"Eh, miss Luna, did you want anything?"

Luna smirked, nodded and twisted him to the ground. She sat down on his back, crosslegged and one arm pushed down his shoulders. "How'd you guess, clown?"

From between the twigs, he got a few of his audience. Claire hunched on a fallen log, while Dilgear leaned against a tree and worked on a cursed sword. Food remnants across the grove told Xelloss they'd been waiting here for a while.

"Let's hear it then. Quickly, if you please. Deep Sea Dalphin expects me to drop by soon and tell her why my liege disappeared so suddenly," he said. "Also, I need some new orders."

"Good, cause I've got some awesome orders for you," Luna said with a double voice, one human, one a threatening growl from her astral side. Xelloss didn't manage to keep his eyes shut, every dark instinct told him to flee — she was stronger, and angry.

"I'm afraid I take orders from only one being in this world, miss Luna," he said as relaxed as he could manage.

"Aww, come now, clown. Do I really need to beat the shit out of you  _again_? I'm very healthy right now, you are still dealing with Dirtworm's bite, no?" she said, running a finger across the top of his head. "It wouldn't be a fair fight  _at all_."

"Miss Luna, if you beat me up, would I even be able to carry out your orders?"

"There's ways to hurt people without harming them," Luna said, "I've never had much chance to experiment on how devils respond to that, though."

"Well, why exactly can you not do it yourself, if I may ask?"

"Can't leave. Zelas declared me part of her pack. I bet you're getting a snack out of how I feel about  _that_."

"I guess it can't hurt to listen," he said, ignoring that the  _circumstances_  of listening held a great potential of hurt. "What do you want, miss Luna?"

"I want my dragon back," she said.

"That's very fortunate, since I have a plan for that and those are the orders I hope to get," Xelloss said. "I believe we can employ Sailoon's forces for this, now that they are somewhat integrated with the dragons."

"Awww, good clown. Too bad Zelas is going to turn it down. She's still healing and she had this weird chat with Claire and now Zelas is suspicious. Thinks little lord Aqua might saunter off to join Valgarv. We can't get off the island without raising an alarm now." She fluttered her fingers through the air, towards the north. "Besides, you'd have to go without your mommy anyway. Hop to it, the more time you waste, the more you'll dislike what our dragon ends up as. Angsty Filia is boring, right?"

Now, Claire joined in. "Xelloss, Zelas has doubts about chaotic providence. While she has herself convinced she knows what is expected, I can not eat what she feels about it."

Oh. Chaotic providence. The underlying theory of the Beast Monarch that even if the Lord of Nightmares could not outright act on the world, chaos still had an effect. The existence of miss Lina as the most prime example, the theory said that since convenient coincidences kept enabling the world to exist, that meant the Lord of Nightmares had made up her mind now, and favored existence.

The Beast Monarch being prickly and doubtful about Chaotic Providence was bad, bad news. She hadn't been like that since Lina wandered into infamy.

Angsty Filia wasn't very appealing either.

"True, but what's in it for you? You know I will tell my liege what you're trying here, why risk angering her?" he said.

"I don't give a shit what Zelas thinks." When she said that, Xelloss caught some of her emotions.

He knew a Luna Inverse who rarely felt anything strong beyond rage, or so it appeared. Now he found a stronger version of her concern for others, though still a trimmed version of what normal humans felt. Something had happened.

"Xelloss, stop eating my emotions," Luna said, and this was without her cocky smirk. A dead serious Luna meant extra caution, so he stopped.

"My apologies," he said, just before she shoved his face in the dirt.

"Now now, bad dog. Listen. All you need to do is  _not get_ any pesky orders. I've been in Sailoon, I can tell you everything you need to know. What soldiers are best for what task. Which Zenaffa they control. Who does the best fusion magic, though I bet you can guess that one."

He mumbled something into the dirt, meant to indicate his loyalty lay with Zelas. But he didn't really want her to hear himself, or he could have projected his voice regardless. Luna rapped her fingers on his shoulders, impatient.

"Come on, you want Valgarv to keep playing with her? Do you even know where he came from?"

"I'm guessing Val?" Xelloss said, pushing up on his elbows. "The method baffles me, though. Some sort of alter ego?"

"Ah ah,  _no_. Valgarv was aware the entire time, knows everything Val does," Claire said, holding up a finger. "In fact, he controls Val's behavior to an extent. I'm pretty sure he's the one who spoke to Lei Magnus. Remember that time he came to your work hall, having been attacked by devils? Memphis and Jillas were busy practicing, they didn't pay attention where he was or came from."

"What? How ... He still would not have been able to get through the seal. Not even devils can."

"But gods do," Claire said. "He can forge godly messengers, shaped like doves. We had a good look at his mind when we wandered into his dreams, after I figured out the hollow. Did you know he can make bird-like extensions that are also hollow?"

"That ... that would explain a lot. But how would you explain the fact he isn't like Valgarv as Val?"

"Valgarv considers him a neurological program. It runs in the physical brain — apparently all life in the Black World does. So the child had its own set of emotional responses."

Xelloss had spent some time near the Black Gods, they had mentioned programs as information clusters that steer machines. They compared it to the brain controlling the body, except that in their world, the brain was the persona, rather than being a control method of soul and body. Val had a body for this world, though ... but who knew what kind of cheat methods Volphied had?

All this time, Valgarv had been right under his nose, looking out from that freaky hollow. Valgarv had been playing with Filia, Xelloss and everyone else for seven years already.

"So he's a simulacrum, not a person," Xelloss said, and he left out a whole lot of other things. Most of them involving death wishes on Valgarv.

"He needs fusion magic for Claire, right? Val can do magic. What if right now, he's working on turning Filia into a simulacrum? You wouldn't be able to tell the difference, at least not until a few years down the line, when the behavior doesn't match up anymore."

Luna didn't have evidence that Valgarv could, but the potential was there. He could do that, destroy her as a person and leave a program behind ... it would be perfect for him, in fact..

But that didn't mean he shouldn't tell this to the Beast Monarch.

"I'm sure that if we explain this to my liege, she'll understand the urgency. Miss Filia under Valgarv's control would be a mayor problem."

"Lyos too," Claire said, but she wasn't really offended.

Two sharp pincers drove into the ground at either of his side. "Xelloss, let's get this straight. I want my loved ones to live. I also like that feeling of satisfaction I get after taking vengeance. I can't harm Zelas, but I can kill  _you_."

"Ehm ... miss Luna, there is no need for such extreme measures. I'm sure we can work something out."

"Here's the something : I want your vow that you're going to get them out as quickly as possible," Luna said. "Little sister tells me you keep your word."

"I'm not supposed to do things for my own reasons—"

"Zelas hasn't actually forbidden it, right?"

"Only because there's no specific way to do that without taking away my free will. I need to be able to take decisions in vital scenarios she can't direct me on."

"That and yet you've made plenty of decisions about fiery ladies based on your own reasons." Claire chuckled, and it sank in that she was clairvoyant and had a marked interest in Lina's stories. "Now, if you go to Zelas and she is too paranoid about Chaotic Providence, that won't help anyone, right? What if Valgarv isn't affected by Chaotic Providence, and Zelas concludes the entire theory is bunk? Would that be useful for our common goals?"

He hated the casual implication that Zelas might lose her rationale, but he could not dismiss Claire outright — she might just be the one astral being who had their head correctly on the shoulders. Either she lied about Zelas, or there was concern.

And he really, really didn't like the idea of Valgarv scooping out Filia's whole identity and replacing it with a doll program.

Luna's holy power was so thick, the air shivered around him. She waited. Though he couldn't taste fear, he had the impression it drove her. Not for herself, even.

"Miss Luna, do you even know what you're doing?" he asked.

"Bored. Driving away time by corrupting you."

Zelas might not be the only one unaware of their own emotional experience.

"My liege will be furious if she finds out."

"That'll suck, but I cannot care. Do you wanna care?"

**· · · · · · ·**

It'd be easy to say Luna was a serious threat and to imply he was forced to make a vow. It'd be a lie. He was faster than Luna, once he got away avoiding her would be no issue. While he preferred to keep promises, he was not in any way  _bound_  to.

However, he had not liked to learn his liege was off balance and he could not dismiss it. He had seen her attack a god full out and in blind rage, and now she had holed up on Wolfpack Island. Had she become too cautious or too bold? There was no easy answer.

Still, by the time he arrived in Sailoon, he didn't have a good excuse for when she would ask why he had not come to her first.

Regardless, he was sure that on the basic principle, his liege and him agreed on what had to happen to the world. They needed Lyos and Filia for this, so getting them away from Valgarv was essential.

That and Valgarv was ruining his world again and Xelloss might just maybe disagree a little with sitting back and waiting in this case.

Oh, and if he got caught, he could claim his liege had no idea about his actions without them being suspicious of it.

So, Sailoon. The barrier over Sailoon City was up, but Xelloss still registered as familiar and could pass through.

By now, the tables had flipped. Without support of the main dragon army's teleporters and navigators, Sailoon's army had the benefit on their home turf. A few well crafted golems held a number of dragons in their grip, one on a plaza, another above a building, and over there two golems suspended a dragon over an inn as if their golem masters had caught a falling dragon, then forgot to do anything with the catch.

In the courtyard of the Sailoon palace, dragons in human form were held under a shield. The Sailoon royals perched on a golem and thundered about justice. Also peace negotiations and demands for compensation for the damage, but mostly justice. Their prisoners barely got a word in.

As per usual, Xelloss firmly shut down his miasma consumption channels. It wasn't that he hated the Sailoon royals — with their spirit and drive to get what they wanted was admirable in a way — but oh chaos their optimism was so hard to filter out.

"Hello, miss Amelia and mister Philionel. How are you today?" he said, projecting right at their side. For extra safety, he had another white flag tied to his staff. "I'm surprised I did not see either of you in the Kataart mountains."

"Mister Xelloss! How dare you show your face here?" As expected from Amelia.

"It's the dragon slayer! Flee!" And there were the expected cries of fear from the dragons.

And ... oh, that was not expected. Memphis and Sylphiel stood down there. They'd have all sorts of unsavory tales to tell, depending on how and when they got out of Kataart. But he'd have to figure that out later. With them here, he wasn't sure how much it mattered that he'd gone out of his way to avoid the Sailoon soldiers during the recent battle.

"What a welcome," he said. "And here I'd come to help."

"We don't need help from the likes of you," Phil thundered. "You have proved yourself a criminal of the highest order! No true warrior of justice would ever let themselves in with you!"

Xelloss cracked an eye open. "Oh, really? Can you afford to turn down my help when I'm the only one who can get you to the place that needs most justice?"

"The winds of justice can lead us there without your subterfuge!"

Memphis launched herself onto the roof, grabbing Philionel's arm. "Hey human, ehm, king, sir, stop provoking him! You can't defeat him!"

"I'm really not here to fight. If I were, don't you think there would be more, oh, I don't know,  _violence_? I've come to prolong our partnership," he said, finger up for attention.

"For how long?" And there was Zelgadis, climbing up the other side of the golem.

"Ideally as far as the return of miss Lina. I cannot say when it will be called for that I act as your enemy, but please know that's not something I'd choose on my own accord. Right now, my goal is to break miss Filia and mister Lyos out of the Kataart Mountain prisons. Anyone else you'd like to free can be retrieved as well."

" _Act_?" Memphis said. "Was  _killing my father_ and all those other people an  _act_?"

Her fear caught up a second later to her anger, and she shut herself.

"My my, we seem to have wandered into cliche territory. What do you hope to achieve by mentioning this? A dramatic showdown perhaps?"

"Cut it out, Xelloss," Zelgadis said. "We get you're not here to fight, but we also know you prefer deception. Especially the glaringly obvious kind. It would be just like you to lead us into a trap like this."

Xelloss shifted away, grabbed the nearest holy fusion vessel, claimed the power and teleported back.

"I'll be teleporting us into Kataart. The very fact that I can use spells not my own, holy ones at that, would mark me a traitor. They'd expect me to be a chimera at least, if not worse. It would be my death, not my victory. Unless I have companions I can hide among."

"And what would we be doing in Kataart besides being your smoke screen, when we should be defending Sailoon? You fought the dragons, were their ally, then fought them again. This is a good time to spill some secrets, Xelloss."

He sighed. "Yes, we did turn against the dragons after Lei Magnus escaped. However, this was not by the plan of my liege. I have no choice when I am under orders, and neither does she when Shabranigdu speaks to her. You see, Lei might be gone, but there are two more pieces of Shabranigdu under enemy control. It's a funny story actually, turns out Val really was a cover for Valgarv, and now he got out, snatched the two remaining pieces and now he's got the whole devil court under his control."

"That-no, that's not possible," Amelia said. "If he still existed, wouldn't the gods have noticed and warned us?"

"Who is Valgarv and what do you mean, Val's a cover?" Memphis asked. Xelloss ignored her and launched into an explanation for Amelia and Zelgadis.

"Looks like your plan is going out of control," Zelgadis said. "You should have waited until Lina came back."

Wait a moment, _what_?

"You talk as if—"

"Orun told me what she knows. I could barely put up with that, but I get Lina's reasoning. Zelas's adaptions and compromises are what I'm not aboard with."

Did Zelgadis actually know more than him? Could he ask, safely? Might it compromise future untruths he had to believe in?

"Tel al-Metaliom," Zelgadis said. "What does Lina want to do with it?"

"I don't know," he said. The cocky smirk that got out of Zelgadis was unexpectedly irritating.

"If you ever need to lie convincingly before the enemy devils, you need to not know that. I could ruin that for you right here and now."

"I don't see the point of threatening me with this," Xelloss said.

"What if you getting us involved is another adaption that's being made, which will get us in trouble?"

Hmm. Zelgadis wasn't dense, he had always said that project Sailoon had been a trap. Xelloss would have a better chance at appealing with Amelia, but if he did that now, Zelgadis would jump at the sudden change of gears.

"How much have you told the others about the plan?"

"Amelia knows everything I know, and so does Phil."

And Xelloss still had no idea how much that was. Charred chaos, this was irritating.

Memphis had crossed her arms by now, and said, "I want to know too. Uncle Milgazia's involved now, I have a right to know why."

"I suppose you could discuss it with mister Zelgadis during preparations, but those should not take long, since miss Luna laid out—"

"Luna's aboard with this?"

"Well, actually, in a way ... my liege is a little ... not in the know. Miss Luna sent me in her stead."

"Spill those laid out plans of hers and we'll know whether that's true," Zelgadis said.

Some day he would have to get that man to take serious his disinclination to lie, but alas, another day. Xelloss repeated Luna's instructions as concretely as he could.

"Seems legit, there's some things in there only she would know. The armory, who can do what with fusion. Phil, what you think?" Zelgadis asked at the end of it. "Luna's got her problems, but Xelloss seems to have really talked with her."

"It sounds like for the sake of peace, we'll have to cooperate. I'm willing to take the risk."

"That's my father!" Amelia said, "For justice, we'll play a little dirty!"

"Don't we get a say in this?" asked one of the dragons down below.

"No," Xelloss said.

"That's rude, mister Xelloss. Now that you're on the side of good, you have to go all the way. No dragging feet, no acting like our allies don't deserve a word."

"Yes,  _Xelloss_ ," Zelgadis added. "Or is feet a too relative concept for you?"

"Not at all."

"Good. Then you can get to Taforashia and talk to Pokota."

"Why?"

"He's friends with our way of getting in into Kataart with absolutely no risk of being seen."

**· · · · · · ·**

Xelloss let the Sailoon royals handle their army and the dragons, while he traveled to Taforashia. By the time he arrived, Amelia had already sent a vision spell to explain.

With Pokota being a wholly magical creature, it didn't take as much effort to warp space around him all the way to Sailoon. Being crafted by devil magic, Xelloss could even send him ahead.

They didn't speak much beyond the necesary, but Pokota had a lot more to say for Amelia. Xelloss left them to that too. He had no idea about organizing military efforts, being a one person army. Letting his smoke screen handle the way to be a smoke screen was the best way to go, even if it involved an indirect admission of incompetence.

Pokota's contribution turned out to be summoning Duclis, who traveled around but kept in touch. Xelloss was to retrieve him from some old ruin. Long gone was the tigerman, replaced by a silver quadruped tiger with birdlike wings. Xelloss could guess how he would be of use : with a good ten meters size and a solid distortion on the astral plane, Xelloss could squeeze himself under him. Perfect.

Well, if it didn't take a good two days just to get him back to Sailoon. The Zanaffar magic kept interfering with his own, so he had to take short jumps.

**· · · · · · ·**

They left early in the morning, with a mere hundred of the very best that the elves, dragons and humans had to offer. Also, Jillas and Gravos, who came along less for need and more for association.

As always, teleportation hurt like hell. He was grateful he could do it at all, but that didn't make the experience any better. Relying on another creature's power and capacity come close to suicide, even after the blessing of the Lord of Nightmares. Being cramped up below the wings of a Zannafar only made it worse.

Xelloss stayed close to the ground, unable to will his physical form to defy gravity or even stand. Outside, he heard the soft click of Amelia and Zelgadis joining fusion vessels . Though he didn't see it, he could feel the vibration of the magic.

Amelia and Zelgadis with fusion magic produced amazing and efficient power. The principle behind the way it worked was concord, not romantic love per say, but it happened to be that that was exactly what gave those two the concord they needed. They did the squishy thing where they talked without talking, and Zelgadis didn't even get flustered anymore when Amelia declared it the Power of Love.

The damning thing was they needed no effort at all. It did exactly what they wanted and worked right away, which right now was to be invisible and form a shield that matched perfectly with the earth. Like this, they enclosed the mountain, taking less than a minute altogether.

Devil scouts spotted them, but they did not see a great threat and only sent mediocre challenges. The army could deal with them.

"It's done, mister Xelloss," Amelia said, peeking below Duclis's wing.

Xelloss shifted his projection to match that of a wolf. Those outside the barrier would only see a wolf. Someone would run to Dynast or Dalphin, but it wouldn't be with the story that Xelloss had defected. Those who could see him? All in here and unable to get out, easy to kill.

The moment he stepped out from his shelter, the nearest devils that fought his allies froze up. That cost some their lives, but the rest moved back in fear. Oh, they'd gotten the idea already.

"Xe—"

No time for playing today, he just bit through the first, and methodically moved inside, where he reverted to human projection. Those that were projected he left to his allies, the rest he chased down himself. This whole operation wasn't a matter of strength, it was a matter of speed and invisibility.

Oh, and prisoners that might be killed if any devil got desperate enough for vengeance to bother. He sought out Amelia, and found her in the middle of fisting down a bloated toad.

"Miss Amelia, can you find our target with your senses?" he asked.

She pulverized the devil, dusted her hands and said, "It's too dim, or I would be there already. You should have given us a map."

"My apologies. I was too busy fetching people." He shone a hologram from the sphere on his staff, with as much as he knew of the underground.

After pointing out their locations, he turned away, ready to continue cleaning.

"You're not going with me to miss Filia?"

"No, I still have to some murder to attend to."

After about fifteen minutes of doing exactly that, he came across one of the lower dungeons for mass feeding.

In a far cave, devils like hollowed out eyeballs bunched all across the floor, jellyfish-like tentacles rising to the ceiling. Distorted pieces of their prey hung in the fleshy trap, mostly hands and pieces of skin.

Caught inside the trap were elves and dragons in human form, all clawing to get out while spikes through their stomach pinned them against the shell's walls. Some had pulled themselves out by climbing the tentacles, only forced to give up when their skin merged with it. At random times, the devils would gulp their prey back in.

The devils themselves were relatively weak and left a lot of miasma for their masters. Their ability to trap relied on others giving them blinded, weakened and mute victims who could not cast spells. Due to the chimera process working its way into their legs and arms, killing the devils might kill their prey.

Ah well, he might as well respect what his allies did for him and do it the slow way.

These things had no sentience, so they didn't know to fear him. When attacked, they just consumed all the miasma and drew their prey inside. He had to get up close to the weaker spots of the projection to effectively destroy them. Once one died, he inspected the insides for survivors. Those too mad to function he killed, so the Sailoon troops wouldn't waste their energy on them. After all, he'd never said he was going to spare everyone he found.

The survivors he laid down on the ground, sometimes atop one another when there was too little room. Most weren't awake, but those there were rambled or pleaded mindlessly. Maybe one or two were rational enough to thank him, and then only those dazed enough to not notice his nature.

Somewhere around the twenty-fifth emptied monster, he found Milgazia. Unconscious, but not in need of a mercy killing.

The temptation to just off him right then and there was great. This dragon was responsible for plan B being vacated into plan C, and his jokes were an existential abomination.

However, none of that had been Milgazia's intention. Acting like he did was not Xelloss's style, now he was beyond the reach of the Anti-Fun's power. That sort of nonsense was Valgarv's territory.

Hmm, wouldn't it be hilarious when he realized whom he owed his life to?

So he reached into the disintegrating monster and dragged out Milgazia by his shoulder.

"My my, you've gotten into deep trouble, haven't you?" he drawled.

Milgazia pried open his eyes. No mad ramblings from him, just a healthy amount of fear for his life. Despair too.

Xelloss dropped Milgazia, who stayed on his knees and did not move.

"Aren't you going to say anything? After all, I just saved you."

"For what purpose?" Milgazia muttered.

Xelloss smiled and prodded him over with the tip of his staff. "You can ask my allies," he said, pleased to let him assume the worst for now.

He killed a few more monsters, among which he found Azonge in marginally better health. He pushed him in Milgazia's direction, amused that the dragon then hauled his friend over his shoulder and tried to flee. When Azonge looked back for a moment, Xelloss waved happily.

Rather interesting that the dragon leaders were so enduring and strong; that meant they were not chosen for wisdom, but power.

By then, his allies had found the hall and intercepted the baffled Azonge. Healers poured in, coaxing them to sit down and receive a spell. The others flocked to the spread out survivors.

Xelloss was about to move on when Pokota burst into the room.

"I found Lyos!" Pokota said, giving a pointed look to Xelloss. "We have a problem."

"And you'd like me to solve it, I presume?"

"Yeah, of course! Come on!" Pokota led him three levels up, close to the mountain's peak. This held a wide prison hall with a barrier of its own, at the center of which Lyos lay on the ground.

Lyos did in fact have a problem worthy of attention, just not the kind Xelloss could solve.

"Mister Pokota, that is a Raugnut Rushavna curse. I cannot undo it."

"Are you sure? He's not a blob."

True, the mutations only affected his right side limbs and part of his torso, but the form was undeniable. "I suspect mister Lyos used holy power to ward off the infection's spread."

Upon closer inspection, a barrier surrounded him. Lyos lay on the floor dead center, looking sick even where the curse hadn't afflicted him. His tearing eyes were swollen, his skin bruised and cuts extended all over dehydrated skin.

"Mister Lyos, miss Claire, how are things?" Xelloss asked.

Lyos managed half a grin, which split his face. A snake crawled out of his mouth, only to be ripped away. It burned before it hit the ground, but by then another snake had dug its fangs into Lyos's neck.

"Hey you bastard. Claire said you'd come," he choked out. "You are here to get us out, right?"

"Quite true," he said, while working to tear the barriers down. Dalphin was a skilled caster but not very creative, he could unravel it once he knew what it was. "Would you like to leave a note for the lady? I'll write it for you, since you have your hands full."

"No, she's not my lady. Not gonna give her the honor of talking to her."

Xelloss could just imagine Dalphin, unable to get a word of acknowledgement out of Lyos. That kind of passive rebellion was commendable when nothing else could be done. Still ...

"Are you sure? Once you recover from the battle with Lei Magnus and this curse, you have more than enough power to kill her yourself, and Dynast as well. Wouldn't it be fun if she knew you were coming?"

Lyos shook his head. "I won't be coming, and I'm not gonna take revenge where I'm going."

The last barrier broke down, and Xelloss stepped in. "How else but her death will you remove this curse?"

That grin again. "The spell's person specific, right?"

"Yes ..."

"It's not gonna matter. Look, don't tell Luna this happened to me, she's not gonna like it."

"That shall be hard, seeing as I'm taking you to Wolfpack Island, where she is."

It's not gonna matter and leave Luna out of it. Unbidden, he realized Lyos had to be a sacrificial lamb. Should Luna learn that, she would fear she would be an ingredient too. Aww crap, he wasn't supposed to be figuring out these things until his liege deemed it fit.

He held out a hand to Lyos, and pulled him to his feet. The curse didn't recognize Xelloss as life and they left him alone. Lyos could barely stand on his mutated leg, so Xelloss loosely supported him till they were out of the cell. As soon as Pokota took on a supportive role, he let go. The snakes didn't recognize Pokota either.

"Remember, mister Pokota, healing spells won't work and he must be kept away from organic bodies. While he is not infectious, the snakes are poisonous."

"Got it," Pokota said, before facing Lyos. "So, hi, I'm Pokota, friend of that flat-chested nitwit Lina."

"Lyos here, who shares your fate. I'd call her more of an insufferable genius though," he said, in what seemed like a pointless attempt at using humor against pain.

Xelloss was about to go kill some more, but Pokota said, "They found Filia too. She seems whole but there's something wrong. Can you check on that?"

"Sure."

As anticipated, Filia hadn't moved cells. Though, someone had moved the wall now, allowing physical beings to walk in. To no surprise, Jillas was inside the room, and Gravos just outside. Sylphiel and two elves were there too, trying to break the barrier just beyond the walls.

While Lyos's cell had been a repurposed room with a barrier, Filia's room had the addition of bright lights all over the walls.

She herself stood at the center of the room and its now broken barrier. Just stood there, only a chain to the floor holding her in place. She couldn't quite stand straight, yet refused to sit. Her breathing was shallow and her feet far apart, her eyes closed, but she flinched at every sound.

"Where is miss Amelia?" Xelloss asked Sylphiel.

"Ehm, she doesn't know this magic or any holy, so she went to fight a group of devils that found us. She asked Pokota to tell you."

Ah well. This barrier was much swifter to break, it took Xelloss seconds. Filia was far less of a threat than Lyos, after all.

When he stood before her, he could tell she had been cursed. It had not visible signs of a strong signature, but astrally it looked like a hazy covering.

Sylphiel passed him and laid a hand on Filia's shoulder. Though a gentle touch, Filia startled like she'd been cut. Her eyes flew open and she tripped, falling to her knees as a result. A cry broke out, but she swallowed it.

"What? What's wrong with her, mister Xelloss? She hasn't responded to anything we said to her before, and now this ..."

Xelloss snapped his fingers, and Filia flinched again.

Next he extinguished the lights.

Now Filia opened her eyes.

"Ah, I see. It's a sensory spell. You might want to keep your voice down."

It was an ingenious little thing that served to torture people in a Lassandra truth fashion : it heightened sensory perception by about then times and disabled the cognitive filters used to discard static and noise, but without altering the brain to have the capacity to deal with the excess of information. A light touch became like skin scraped off, voices were screeching and propioception became an ungainly mess. No doctor could find anything wrong, and so its victims were deigned mad or delusional.

Well, Deep Sea Dalphin certainly had been honest about leaving Filia intact.

Sylphiel knelt down before Filia, a healing spell ready.

"That is wasted," Xelloss whispered. "She is not ill. Give me a moment."

With the flick of a wrist, he caught the spell's radius. It wasn't the kind that went unbroken as long as the devil lived, so he could undermine it by claiming it. The curse broken with a few simple adjustments, then he broke the chains on the floor.

Filia's let go a breath, finally looking up. She stood up on shaky legs, which prompted Jillas to shoot to her side and be of service. When Sylphiel noticed touch didn't hurt anymore, she took her hands to inspect them.

The shackles were still on, so Xelloss reached out to remove them. Instantly, Filia backed away, clutching her hands close.

"What happened?" Sylphiel asked. "Were your hands broken?"

That voice seemed to bring Filia back to her senses, but she didn't answer yet.

"It's over, gunmoll," Jillas said, patting her arm. "I bet Sylphiel can do a spell for that."

"Val," Filia said. "Is Val ... is he still okay?"

"Ehm ..." Xelloss had no idea how to break that in a nice way, so he might as well do it as it was. "Well, you've met Valgarv. If you had any hope your son's still around, miss Luna and miss Claire assure me he isn't. Apparently he never existed."

Hope dying was a very nutritious emotional event, which Filia accented with losing her balance. Jillas tried to support her, but had a hard time.

"Gunmoll, you're too heavy."

"She probably hasn't slept since that spell was cast," Xelloss said. "Pain tends to keep people awake, and I suppose her concentration is in poor shape."

"We'll get you somewhere you can sleep soon, but you really need to change your weight. We cannot help you walk like this," Sylphiel said. She looked at Xelloss. "Could you carry her?"

"No," Filia whispered sharply. "I don't want  _him_  near me."

Realization of him brought out fear.

"Miss Filia, in case it wasn't clear, I wasn't going to kill you. I was given the order by my liege, who received it from—"

"Shut up!" she said. "I figured it out already. The hair, the word trick. Lives lost. I know. Now get lost!"

"If you know—"

"Get away!" Tears went down her face, but rage also boiled up. " _Get away_!"

More a wild animal than a proud dragon, at long last Filia Ul Copt had learned to fear him. If he had ever really wanted that, he no longer did.

"Why? Do you think I'll hurt you now, after I've gone through so much trouble to get you out?"

The answer was a loud bang, a searing pain through his head and splattered red all over the right wall. Xelloss blinked with one eye, more surprised than stunned by the pain.

"She said get away," Jillas growled. Xelloss looked to the left, right at Jillas's drawn gun. Well, it looked like Sylphiel wasn't the only one picking up techniques in Sailoon. That bullet definitely had a magic edge to it, it still stung.

He prodded the gaping hole in the side of his head, ignoring Sylphiel's horrified gasp.

Filia laid a stiff hand on Jillas's shoulder, not quite able to grasp them. "Mister Jillas, that's useless. Please don't waste your ammo."

"You're unreasonable, miss Filia," Xelloss said. "I've given you a clear hint, you claim to have understood it. If this is about Val and Valgarv, I am not the one you should take this out on."

She sank back to the ground, hiding her face. Why the child act now?

"You don't get it, do you?  _Please_  go away, Xelloss," she whispered between sobs. "Just this once, listen to me."

Revulsion, horror, but unlike seven years ago, this was so much more personal. It stopped him from pointing out he'd been listening to her just fine; whatever he could say felt meaningless. Something felt wrong and he couldn't place it. Lyos wasn't broken and in despair, despite heading for likely demise, but Filia ... what was it?

"Don Gravos!" Jillas called out the hole, after shooting Xelloss a foul look. "Get over here, gunmoll's sick and needs help walking!"

"I don't fit that hole," Gravos said, but he held out an arm through it. Filia staggered past Xelloss and leaned on his arm. Jillas made a poor attempt to cheer her up, telling her she would get a good meal and bath in Sailoon, how it was safe now, the dragons had surrendered.

Probably a bad time to mention he would bring them straight to Wolfpack Island.

Sylphiel turned to him, a stern frown on her face. "What did you do to her?"

"I broke her hands and told Deep Sea Dalphin I'd like to save her for later, then left her in the aforementioned's care.

" _What_? Couldn't you have just teleported her and Zelas away? Is your cover really worth this? Didn't you see what she's like?"

"Quite in one piece, thanks to me."

"Stop smiling! How can you be so callous about this?" Sylphiel raising her voice, how rare.

There it was, the endless baffling at his cruelty. Moments like this were one of the reasons he favored his mysterious kindly priest reputation. He cracked his eyes open and said, "I can because I'm a devil. Actually, I got a wonderful meal out of it."

"People aren't meal platters, mister Xelloss," she said.

"I have a better idea about what people are than you ever could."

**· · · · · · ·**

After he had ensured every enemy was dead, Xelloss went outside in cat form. By now, the barrier had drawn quite some attention, but no priests, generals or kings were to be seen. At least not projected.

The fusion vessels that Zelgadis and Amelia used had been placed atop the mountain, with a dim string of magic tying it to Amelia. Zelgadis himself was no priest, so he remained at hand. As such, he served as guard for them.

"What are you doing?"

He just continued. "To be honest, we won't be returning to Sailoon. Miss Claire awaits us on Wolfpack Island, I will tune into her beacon."

"We're not going there."

Xelloss wagged his finger. "I say we do."

Zelgadis didn't argue, perhaps kept in check by that healthy hint of fear. That, or he saved it for Amelia. When the princess arrived, he jumped to his feet, finger at the beacon Xelloss was building, but she had other goals.

"There you are, mister Xelloss. I had a word with miss Filia." Amelia had that look. The justice shall punish you look. "Don't you feel bad at all?"

"No. Why should I?"

"Because she's your friend and you hurt her a lot."

"It truly becomes tiresome, having to remind you physical people that I am a devil. I do not have nor need friends, miss Amelia."

"You're missing the point," Zelgadis said. "I've never hated Lezo for wanting to cure his eyes, but I've hated how he used me to get there. It wouldn't have cost him anything to tell me what would happen up front, just like you could have warned Filia years ago that there was a charade and all the sick details that could lead to."

"That really was up to my liege," he said.

"Then you can consider this criticism of Zelas too."

"See it from my side for a moment. I was in a situation where I'd be expected to act like a devil. The only plausible way I could get Dalphin to keep her alive is if I brought up a personal reason to do so, and the only plausible one I had is resentment. Valgarv bought it, so she lives. Valgarv is personally acquainted with the notion of keeping loathed people alive to play with them first. He has a thing for themes, you see.

My liege and I have to navigate a emotion-eating court of chaos that  _will kill or enslave us_  if we are not perceived as dedicated world destroyers who thrive on despair and hatred. Shabranigdu or anyone claiming his voice can take away our free will if he feels he has reason to. Whatever order that voice gives his creations, we  _become_  it. Like the embodiment of a command, we are hijacked as the extension of our creators. We need caution."

"That may well be so, but that doesn't answer why you're using others as tools. If anything that should give you an idea what it's like to be used."

"It's not on the same level, but you couldn't possibly understand what it's like," he said on reflex, right as it sank in he didn't really understand either. He liked to obey Zelas most of the time, it was only the orders in context of what the others expected that he was against.

"I used to be Lezo's berserker! I didn't even have the luxury of remembering what I did! Every time I visit a place I once lived around, I may run into people who were affected by what Lezo made me do. Don't lecture me on loss of free will."

Given that empathy quite literally would implode an astral being, the appeal to similarity wasn't anything Xelloss wanted to engage with. "I didn't lecture you, I pointed out a reasonable risk. We have our very own Lezo going round recruiting us."

"Typical, of course you wouldn't get it. Because in this whole game, you're not just a victim. You started a bloody chimera trend in Sailoon, and what for? So you can use us as well."

"That's what this is about?" He knew it wasn't, but he preferred to change the topic. "Still irritated I undermined the legitimacy of your life quest, or do you have a problem with your fiancé's new look?"

Amelia stepped between them, glaring at Xelloss. Zelgadis stayed furious, but left the word to Amelia.

"You're still missing the point, mister Xelloss. We talked about that long ago, between ourselves, but that doesn't reflect on your behavior."

"Frankly, I do not care how anything reflects on me right now. I have greater things to worry about."

"Still, don't you feel the least bit guilt or regret?" Amelia said.

"I regret it alright, but guilt? Why? Tell me, I'm really curious what you are wasting my time about."

"You might not have aimed for this outcome, but your lord did create this situation," Zelgadis said. "I can name out least four points in this whole mess where you could have made a more humane choice and everyone have been in less danger."

"Alas, we cannot change the past," Xelloss said.

And there was Amelia's finger, as expected. Less expected was the lack of justice speech.

"You sound like I did ten years ago."

" _What_?" Xelloss blurted out.

"I dealt like that with justice," she said. "Villains were villains, heroes were heroes and there was no room between it. You think you can look the world in the same simple way, except it's like a chessboard for you. You can't imagine anyone outside of the pieces you think they are. Well, mister Xelloss, you are a hypocrite. Didn't you yourself tell me the world is not that simple?"

"I hardly see how high idealism and goal orientation have to do with this," he said, not even trying to not sound irritated. "It's more like some people represent the whiter side and some the blacker side. We all play the roles we're best at."

"Don't twist the words! I can't be a good soldier of justice unless I break a few rules here and there, and sometimes villains become heroes and the other way around. I even found my true love in someone who used to be a villain!"

"Is there a point to this any time soon?" Xelloss asked.

"I was getting to that. You're astral, but you work with physical people. We change, we sometimes are queens and at other times soldiers, but for you, it's just you and the board, and you refuse to admit you're on the board. We're all adapting when it's needed or forced. I don't see you doing that at all."

He must have missed something. Amelia wasn't typically the dispenser of sound advice, yet at her words Zelgadis's emotions turned to both fondness and bitterness. Hmm ... he had not really paid attention to what they'd done after he sent them for the chimera recipes.

"Do you even hear anything I say?"

"Yes, but I'm not sure why you bother. If miss Filia adapted in one way or another that makes her consider me a friend, that's her fault, not mine. She really ought to know better than—"

"But you came here without your lord's permission, because miss Luna wanted it. You really ought to know that you yourself aren't stagnant either."

Oh, right, that. He really needed a better explanation for that.

"Well, as my liege often says, unexpected things always happen. Now that we're here, unable to change the past, we should make the best of it."

"Why don't you start with an apology?" Amelia demanded. "I know you can do those, I've heard you say it. Or is that just a whim or something?"

Xelloss didn't have a clear answer for that, only that apologizing to Filia wasn't part of the grand plan. Then again, many things had not been.

"Even if I followed your reasoning, I don't know how," he said at last.

**· · · · · · ·**


	29. Luna's Vitality

**· · · · · · ·**

Life was dreary, Luna was weary, Zelas was hairy, Filia was fairy, Spot was merry, Claire was clairy.

Or more adequately described, Luna was so bored that she considered refining her rhyming.

Lina was a complete idiot to think she'd be satisfied with a luxurious castle life with servants at the beck and call when adventure was in her bones.

Adventure was  _not_ in Luna's bones, she _liked_ her structured life, thank you very much now die. It said something that even she got fed up with the monotony of what was a perfect lavish palace life.

Well, maybe not so quickly. There  _was_ a liquor cabinet.

Maybe that had something to do with the rhyming.

 _Crack_. Luna looked down, saw the ceiling, tried again, saw the couch and bed leg before she got the direction right.

Holy hell, why were there fifteen empty bottles on the floor?

Swwwwwirly world.

Hmm ... ceiling again. She was pretty sure she hadn't tried looking at it.

Ceiling, feeling, healing ... yeah, those last two sounded  _good_.

**· · · · · · ·**

"Sacred mother of hangovers ..." Luna groaned as she opened her eyes, only to shut them right away. Some cruel person had put the sun in her room.

"Your prayer has reached the intended deity. We have business hours at five every day, would you like to make an appointment?"

Luna forced herself up on her elbows to face ... a chain of rings?

Ah, Zelas. Great. The bitch leaned against one of the posters, in travel form and with a cigarette drooping from her fingers. Luna came to the profound, alcohol-aided realization that Zelas's two human forms shared the same hips.

It was just too early in the morning for hot devils. Luna swung her legs over her bed and looked at the broken glass instead.

Feet, the scent of wet dog and green fur, and there was Spot leaning over her.

Too early in the morning for scruffy troll werewolf hybrid too. Hell, how had he been even been conceived? Whatever the case, his hips just didn't look as good.

"Luna, are you alright?" he asked.

"Spot, I'm in paradise," Luna declared, flaring her arms heavenward. She held the pose for a moment before falling back on the bed, curling up in fetus position and groaning.

Zelas casually flicked her cigarette away, which landed on a nearby divan. It burst into flames.

"Oops. I strongly advise that you depart your bed, lady Luna."

"Bowl," Luna said. "Now."

Spot ran off to find something, but by the time he returned with a pot, it was too late. Luna had pushed her head over the bed's edge and vomited.

"What would your dear little sister say if she saw you like this?" Zelas purred. Literary. Catlike rattle under her breath and all. Rather than sexy, it made her inhuman. Luna swallowed the curse on her lips.

Since her human limbs did not cooperate, she projected her tendrils to push up, but even has astral form lacked focus. She hit one of the posts of the skybed with a sharp tip, and maybe something else, because the whole thing came down.

Zelas laughed, and Luna really  _felt_  that bed collapsing on her. Hard. Right in the dignity.

Spot pulled the bed pieces away. By the time Luna emerged, the burning couch had caught the curtains on fire.

Luna groaned. Had it been up to her, she'd have stayed in bed all day. Now the walls were on fire, and there went the liquor cabinet.

Spot didn't wait for permission to grab her and jump out of a window that thankfully didn't burn yet. Outside, he set her down on a log. Luna threw up again, recovering just in time to see Zelas saunter out of the mansion.

When Zelas flicked another cigarette over her shoulder, the mansion exploded.

"You burn your house often?" Spot asked.

"No, only segments of it. It ensures an alert staff," Zelas said. "Should you be envisioning burning servants, I ought to point out everyone of my court exists on the astral plane and can simply cease projecting."

"Oh, right. I'm still getting used to that idea. I can regenerate, but fire still hurts like hell."

"As someone who has been to hell, I dare say that's not a worthwhile comparison. Hellmaster Fibrizo preferred a more rocky elemental theme. Crystals all over the place. Maybe we ought to introduce some fire ..."

Spot actually laughed at that.

Since when were Spot and Zelas on chit chat base?

"Spot, wha—"

Before she got any attention, a mangy serpentine dog slithered up. For as far as its head wasn't to the ground yet, it bowed to Zelas. Its physical form was unstable, it had to be exhausted.

"Esteemed Beast Monarch, we have returned. I've yet to question any of my spies for news, we had to return quickly to avoid being seen. The others are at the northern shore and headed this way, would you like me to gather a report?"

"I shall meet them myself, lieutenant. You are dismissed. Mister Dilgear, lead him to the mezes grove for feeding."

"Sure thing," Dilgear said. Without a single glance at Luna, he swung the devil over his shoulder and ran off.

Zelas was gone when Luna looked back at her. Then Luna's room exploded. Well then.

Seeing as her room was gone and Spot had no business taking orders from anyone but Luna, so she went after him.

Or at least, she tried. All forests functioned as one organism to a degree, but this here took that notion far more literary.

Zelas's impeccable palace belonged to her aristocrat identity, but the forest belonged to the wolf. Zephyria's wilderness didn't compare.

This forest had the eons of twisted magic behind it, trees thicker and stranger than anything she'd before. Leafs ignored the sun altogether, trees grew sideways out of steep drops and branches grew into one another. Sometimes the undergrowth was sparse, other times so dense and full of magic she couldn't see ahead on either plane.

Despite its twisted nature, the forest held brightness. Where it wasn't the sun filtering through the trees, the trees itself held a glow and veins ran across the ground. A hum formed by howls, birds and insects thrilled through the undergrowth, and one couldn't take a step without meeting life. Wolf chimeras, werewolves, trolls and wildlife shared this space in an near-natural cycle of life. Once or twice she came across a hunt, but it was almost ... peaceful.

None of this answered how all these devils survived. Did Zelas have a torture dungeon around? Then why order that devil to a grove?

She grabbed the next devil she found and pinned them down.

"You. Where is the mezes grove?" she asked.

"You're not invited there," he said.

"You're invited to not answer and die," Luna said.

And so she got the answer.

As Luna followed the directions, odd, squeaking wails came from the canopy. When there were enough to overpower the other noises, she couldn't ignore them anymore.

Between the leafs hung wombs of all sizes. Misshaped unborn writhed inside them, endlessly suffering and despairing in the way only simple minds could. They were too immature to see whether they belonged to humans or animals. It probably didn't matter.

Luna clutched her stomach. All her life of looking at Siephied's skeleton hadn't given her much of a resilience against this kind of sickness. Her astral body at least wasn't squishy, just gory. It didn't make  _noises_  like this.

She couldn't even close her eyes and stop seeing, it existed on the astral plane too. Time to figure out how to look at the ground alone, which only held magical roots.

Roots that mirrored on the astral plane several layers down.

Hell, Zelas had figured out organic life really well. The care she had poured into this island astounded even Luna, who had grown accustomed to Zephyria's grand capital. For all of Liliane's skills and intricate magic, she could not invent new forms of life.

It was common rumor in Zephyria and many other places that the devils while trapped on their islands had torture dungeons to feed them. Zelas's way avoided that altogether. Huh.

"What would you be doing here, lady Corpse? Seeking kindred bodies perhaps?"

Dammit, she had used that trick again to hide her power. Something so strong should not be able to sneak up on her, but Zelas did anyway. With just a flicker, Zelas towered before her, ears reaching into the canopy. Her projection stood in its truest form but without the armor, cloth and weapons. Luna had half expected a more humanoid outline below those, but no. She was a little disappointed.

"Looking for Spot."

"He found a better occupation than you," Zelas said, just as she pulled down one of the sacks. The mutant thing screeched as she tore it came to the air. Slowly, Zelas bore in her claws, causing blood to run down her fur. Maybe that sensation was why she'd ditched the clothes, because why else? She didn't need to eat the gore, for Zelas it was the simple emotions it felt.

The pain they brought out was so simple and messed up, Luna could barely tell despair apart from fear.

"Did you just consume some of the miasma?" Zelas asked.

"What if I did?"

"There is a difference between sampling emotional energy and actually consuming it, please tell me you know to do this."

"Eh, yeah, I can. Any other lies you wanna hear?"

Zelas flattened her ears and whined in irritation.

"It is not merely the liquor that renders you sick, is it? When you killed those angels, did you eat then too?"

Luna shrugged.

Zelas flared her wings into the canopy, tearing down some of the sacks so they hung only by the umbilical chords.

"I believe it is time I touch you how to eat like an astral being."

The womb she'd pulled down was at least five meters tall and emitted a thick cloud of misery, but that subsided. The thing inside stopped writhing and felt pleasant perhaps for the first time in its life. While lacking the refined emotions of an adult, it was amazing in its potential.

"Try eating that, and only that. It is disgraceful that you as a creature with grip on the flow cannot separate your food while I can."

Luna crossed her arms. "Pray tell, why do you bother teaching me anything?"

"I do not wish for your amateur magic to spoil the angelsblood talisman. Employ the flow technique that miss Orun taught you."

The talisman was gone and its presence simulated by Claire, who had taken a magical cue from the time she'd helped Filia astrally travel to Luna in the west. Luna was out of purpose without the talisman, so that had to stay a secret."

"Fine, I'll try eating ... do we have a word for happy foodstufs? Like opposite of miasma?"

Zelas chuckled. "There is none. Organic life has often had need to say devils have come to feed on miasma, but never did they need to say the gods have come to feed on its opposite. A few words were proposed by scholars : ambrosia, nectar and prasada are the most common. Claim one of your choosing, child."

Even if Zelas meant that as insult, child was an improvement over corpse.

Luna sat down on the root and tried to take in only what the offered felt. Perhaps on intent, Zelas pulled down her next meal nearby.

Emotional energy existed equally on both planes, as if it were what bound the layers of existence. Emotions released on the physical realm had the extra punch and spice of an organic generator. Emotions of astral beings were purer and more intense, but harder to get a grasp of since it did not travel on the worldly flow. Zelas actually thought they were less intense because of that. Luna saw no point in correcting her.

Zelas sucked away all the miasma, leaving Luna a clean field. She swallowed the dull happiness, already missing the sharp sting of misery. Every time miasma got in her range, Zelas would snatch it away. That did not leave a clean field : Zelas herself felt many negative things.

Right now, her fear and worry stood out beyond anything. It gave Luna something to practice rejecting even before Zelas loosened her intake on the miasma, but more importantly, it told Luna something new.

She had always assumed that Xelloss was odd because the Sea of Chaos sent him back different, but no. Zelas displayed similar borderline taboo emotions for a devil.

Hmm, maybe her messing with Spot wasn't  _just_  to spite Luna.

"So, what are you doing with Spot?" Luna asked on the tail of her whim. "Bored with worrying over your kid and driving away time with prying my dog away from me?"

"I am merely offering mister Dilgear better employment. I may hope you intend no criticism, you who temps priestesses to turn on their gods?" Her tail wooshed like an irritated cat.

"Nah, not criticism. Just wanna know why you bother."

"Why would I not? I have time to spare and always seek worthwhile servants. They come rather short in number, you understand. Unlike you, I cannot just pick them off the street."

"Why not? Grab a soul, glue a devil to it, beat it until it bleeds for you."

Zelas gave her a long look with those mismatched eyes. "It is no surprise your sister hates and fears you so much that Garv can pursue her without it ever crossing her mind to ask you for help."

"She made it out, didn't she? I trained her well."

"It was not by your skill that she lived, it was by the grace of our indomitable Mother."

Insulting the Lord of Nightmares right now wouldn't be a good idea, even if jokes about running to mommy were so, so easy. For Zelas, the Lord of Nightmares was sacred.

"Anyway, let's not talk about my little sister. I'll be doing plenty of that once she gets back. About Spot, I'm not sure whether I like you claiming him."

"Claim him? Those who fear their leader will turn on them or run when given a chance. Why would I resort to such a feeble method with it does not take much effort to win loyalty instead?"

Ye gods, there were so many ways that didn't line with Zelas's approach to responsibility to  _pawns_  — Claire had ranted on that for fours after Zelas refused to budge. Luna could easily turn that into a scathing reply, but she wanted to know her response to one other thing.

"Is  _that_ why you made Xelloss with a pack instinct, so you don't have to bother at all?"

Zelas folded her wings neatly and continued eating, not giving an answer.

Luna grinned. "Oh please. I'm neither blind nor tasteless. That there's something wrong with you."

Zelas bared her teeth. "There is nothing  _wrong_  with us. I have made my choices to survive. Once proved useful, pack members serve their role best if they are content with their place and have no desire to find greener meadows. Mere obedience to commands cannot do this, which is why to be part of the inner circle of my pack required a great deal of proof."

"Yeah okay but you're still not a proper devil."

That pissed Zelas off beyond belief.

If Luna really did cut away her own negative emotions before living them, was the mild unease and irritation she felt just a surface of a far deeper emotion?

Maybe she could figure this out if she tried it on another.

Zelas's outward emotional flow was easy to get a hold on, now she just had to swim upstream.

Devils has no neurology to tamper with, but on raw mind it actually was easier. The root of the emotion didn't so much look like anything as it felt like a nest. She could reach into it, if not take it apart and—

Before Luna got one change in, Zelas lashed out.

Being only at Xelloss's level, Luna's power held nothing against Zelas. The impact threw Luna at the tree behind her. Her shoulder collided first and shattered.

She caught herself on projected claws before she hit the ground. Her powers already kicked in to heal her, but defense went active when the devil loomed over her, teeth bared and bloodlust oozing off of her.

" _Never_  do that again," Zelas growled.

"Okay, got it," Luna said, loath to realize she had absolutely felt fear now, all the way into shaking limbs. If her powers were on defense and she had to heal herself, well, that explained why she only felt it in extreme situations. She'd once considered herself brave. Now she wasn't so sure.

Zelas pulled back, peering down at her through narrowed eyes. Her physical projection trembled a little, an understatement to her rage. How she managed not to act on what she felt did another thing to Luna she didn't like : she admired her.

Selfdammit.

**· · · · · · ·**

Luna didn't rediscover sleep, but she managed trance. Too bad it was broken by a soft voice that was entirely too near, "Luna Inverse, wake."

The room was too dark to see physically, but on the astral plane, Shabranigdu loomed over her. Luna was out of her bed and at the door within one breath.

This put her sideway the chair in the corner and now she saw the man's silhouette. Shabranigdu hadn't moved at all, but the man did by holding up his hands peaceably.

"I mean you no harm, please sit down," he said.

Luna projected two tendrils and set them alight. The fire's glow fell on red robes and long black hair in a priestly cut, framing the narrow face of a northerner.

He didn't attack. If he did, he would be more powerful and have an advantage due to a protective Zenaffa cluster. Hmm.

As it stood, she wasn't on the side of Zelas, Lei didn't attack her, she'd lose a fight if she tried — how tiresome to be outclassed so often — and so there was no reason to complicate anything. Might as well be social.

"I'm gonna guess you're the icicle king," Luna said, dropping her hand from the hatch.

"I prefer Lei Magnus. Shabranigdu is a devil and a king, I am but a man. Granted, a powerful man and as you are, a chimera now."

"And a controller of Zenaffa too," Luna said. "Where'd you get those?"

"The dragons gave them to me. The pieces of Shabranigdu are interlinked, lest I want Valgarv to track me down, I need to hide my traces." When she didn't immediately respond, he added, "You're not surprised. Zelas told you about him?"

"I saw him myself," she said idly.

He must have tasted something in her emotions, because he felt curiosity. "What did you do?"

"Not much."

"You're guilty of something. I imagine it takes a lot to do that to a woman like you, who doesn't fear."

"It's the middle of the night, you broke into my room and you messed up my attempts to sleep. I bet you can also taste how I feel about  _that_. You have ten seconds to tell me what you're here for, or I get Zelas's attention," she grumbled.

"I hope to gain an ally in you."

"Really? You came here for that? How did you know where I was?Also ..." She couldn't hurt him directly, but she could use projected dragon claws to pick him up. With one swoop, she tossed him out of the door. "The whole mysterious guy in the room routine is corny."

She slammed the door, threw on her day clothes and stepped outside.

Lei was about to speak, but she hushed him. "Follow me, we talk elsewhere."

He didn't get why, but obliged her. "Say, you are remarkably blase about my arrival, if one discounts the throwing."

"Thanks. Blase takes effort, especially when there's creepy guys in your room. Watch me in the kitchen."

"Why on earth would you invite me to the kitchen?"

"I did not work in a restaurant for a decade without recognizing the specific emotions that come with hunger," she said. "Nourished people make more sense and you haven't eaten in a thousand years."

Hesitant, he followed her all the way. To his credit, he remained silent.

There weren't much devils around here. Aside of all their real food being outside, the lot avoided Luna like the plague.

Zelas's kitchen contained the kind of extravagant food supply you'd expect from creatures unrestrained by organic bodies when craving food. Food from all across the world could be found here, be it fresh or as a complete dish kept in magical preservation. Cabinets, fridges, floating tables, flooded cellars, the whole deal. Up till recently, this chamber was a secret to the pure devils.

"Take your pick, but don't touch anything. I got a pass and won't set off the alarm, you would."

For a moment, Lei Magnus was the kid in the candy shop and permission to choose. Oh, he tried to play the stately sage, but that didn't hide his emotions. Luna filtered out his worries and pulled in the almost sweet joy. Either Shabranigdu could use Lei as a puppet like Valgarv used Val, or she really did look at a man who wanted life.

He had her get fifteen separate dishes, and being a human sage, he scarfed all of them down. Luna got a few for herself and tried not to mind his table manners.

"I'd forgotten how good it was," he said once he slowed down a little. "I hope I can dream again."

"Good luck with that — I haven't gotten sleep right since I became a chimera. Anyway, explaining time. Shoot."

He looked confused. "I'm not here to har—"

"Modern day slang. It means I'm inviting you to tell your deals."

"Ah, that I can do."

His short tale felt like it should be longer. Due to a combination of Ragradia's power being jostled and Shabranigdu's power being summoned while the human soul was firmly embedded Ragradia's wayward ice, there was a rift that tackled dominance to the human soul. Once falling into place, they had blended like. Lei had been carved out by the devils, been found out as not being the lord of darkness all the way, and the devils had vacated to let the dragons and their Zenaffa armor deal with him. When Valgarv approached, he had persuaded the armors to flee.

"And you came here because ..."

"I suspect that Zelas and Xelloss have evolved into something that does not line up with Shabranigdu anymore. However, even if they are, I arrive to a death scene and the Knight of Siephied with a chain around her neck. I believe there also is a barrier around this island that prevent you from leaving?"

"Yep to all of it. I'm dying to know why, though."

"You're not dying."

Luna sighed. "Metaphor for being exhausted."

"Anyway, I'm not yet certain what to expect of Zelas. She is no outright ally of the dragons, or am I wrong?"

"No, I am sure she is not. Neither she nor her priest had any regard for them, save one odd case. Anyway, I might have come here for Zelas, but I believe you would be a better ally in what I hope to do.

Did you know I created the demonblood talismans? With the pieces of deities, one can transcend so far into the astral layers that we can reach for the force that upholds the world. And now I hear the goddess Volphied rebelled against her own nature in joining with Dark Star in a rampage of destruction, ultimately intending to subvert the Lord of Nightmares herself. Free will is possible!" he said. "And we can reshape the world. The possibility is there for those strong enough. That's how the Lord of Nightmares set it up."

"High ambitions, no?" she said as she poured herself some wine. Just for the imago of the lady in control, swirling it around idly.

"I only want to get rid of my enemies, who happen to be very powerful."

"I just wanna have my life  _and_  my death."

"You want your death?" He stared at her intently. "There's something very strange about you. I get hints of negative emotions, but I cannot hold them long enough to consume. What are you doing? I've never met someone where emotions worked like this."

"I've been told I've got Holy Rezast effect on chronic drive," she said.

"Why would you choose that? It's not like the reasons and trigger for your emotions are gone, you just won't experience it fully. What if one day you're beaten up so much you can't use that magic anymore?"

She didn't respond.

"You might just find yourself mad with grief, or distracted by confusion or at the very least unable to handle having such intense emotions," he said. "I don't think you understand what it's like. When an emotion wells up like the rising sea and chases your rational mind until you drown it doesn't matter anymore what you think is right or wrong."

"Aha. If it's so hard to handle, should I assume you're not Lei Magnus anymore?"

He gave a helpless little shrug. "I don't have anyone to tell me but Shabranigdu. You know, even now I infected him or us or ... that human soul infused me with the desire to live, I can't tell. I remember a life as Shabranigdu, during which I wanted things opposite of what I am now, and I remember a life as Lei Magnus, full of feelings and wishes that have died on me. What about your identity?"

"I am intensely fascinated," Luna said while inspecting her nails. "Truly, deeply fascinated."

"That's the kind of reply you've got when someone tells you something personal?"

"It sounds like you're pulling a poor conflict me spiel in hopes of making us bond. You're either desperate or pathetic."

Another long pause from him, during which he folded his hands and appeared to think.

"Yes, I'm short an allies and I'm even shorter on people who are like me," he said after a while.

"Tough luck."

"If it's not for sympathy, you could at least try to use reason," he sneered. "You need help that Zelas will not and cannot give. Who will you go to? The gods?"

Luna downed her wine. "Pray tell,  _what_  help do I need for myself?"

"You could be a completely different person underneath that," Lei said. "I wonder whether your true self would like who you are now. Maybe she influences you to some extent, just like Shabranigdu always spurred or hindered my decisions. I wonder, is the human Luna Inverse the hidden monster of the Knight I see before me, or the human?"

"I feel fine, no point fretting."

"I have a decent idea on what part of your active magic does the trick," he said. "I could help you find out how. Did you ever die?"

Hesitant, Luna said. "Yes."

"Is that when you started seeing the astral plane?"

"Why do you think that caused it?"

"Seeing as you're unaware of what some of your magic is doing, that's the only way I can imagine you becoming aware. Once someone loses their mortal body, they are more often to understanding the worldly powers — it is why some ghosts can turn their own resentment into monstrous magic. Death is the first step to becoming an astral chimera, rebirth the second."

Luna stayed silent, muling this over. She had been able to see the astral plane her entire life, or rather, as far as she could remember her life. Filia could project a range onto the astral plane with sufficient power, but the gods had adapted her magical construction as a channel. Ghosts she didn't know much about. She needed to know more.

"When does human memory really start, oh great and wise sage?"

"At about three years. Even later your memories are not reliable; they are rewritten every time you recall them. Not to mention how vital emotional experience is in recalling them."

"If I died when I was really little, I wouldn't remember then. So what? I'm alive now."

"But as what? I live too, but I am stitched up with devil magic. No human could survive a thousand years without air or food. I think you're the same as me."

"Really now?"

"There is a simple way to check. Did you know that there is a correspondence between the humanoid projection of an astral creature, and their body? While not vital in the same way, there is a link through which they simulate their life. It's usually in the chest," Lei said. He laid a hand on his own, bring about a glow. While his physical hand stayed the same, his astral hand expended inside.

It could be a trap, but Luna was sure she could deal if something went wrong. She mimicked what he did and found a nexus of energy there, not unlike Megiddo.

The ribcage around her melted shut, changed to include shriveled organs stuck to the sides. Where her heart beat was only a pulsing white light, flaming veins shooting out from it. Some connecting to a network in her lower abdomen, and a single dried out pipe fell down from her mouth. There were no lungs left, but magic filtered the air and droplets of blood formed below.

She pulled her hand loose, and her astral body returned to normal.

"Are you alive?" Lei asked.

No, apparently not. Lei was right, she had died, she was like him, she was ... just a patched up doll. A corpse wrapped in clothed, so nobody could see the death inside.

She sunk her head to the table and crossed her arms before it.

Luna hadn't been shocked when she realized the thing around her was a corpse, but it  _had_  taken a struggle to get rid of the idea she was filthy.

If she had taken the first step so young ... Liliane had known. That was why she needed that contraption to destroy her, rather than merely killing her. Not that poison worked, Luna learned to recognize it. Someone always tried to kill her.

She could not feel disgust even if the intellectual side of it thrived. Dirt and mess in her home was intolerable, but it bothered her on a level different than outright feeling ... or was the root of the feeling there? The first emotion she filtered out of herself.

Anger drove her, with good reason she enjoyed its thrill, or was it just anger without something more negative? Now she had anger and nothing but herself to express it. Nothing to kill, nothing to curse.

Right as she realized this, she felt her own anger sizzle out until all she had left was an utter hollow.

Lei's eyes widened. "Good nature, what  _are_  you doing to yourself?"

"I don't know."

The human mind can run into circles perfectly well without emotions, and fire doesn't need the smoke to burn. A thousand  _what ifs_  bombarded her.

What if she hadn't cut away her emotions when Lina apologized for her scheme, would she have been less harsh? What if she had emotions at any other time she punished anyone whom displeased her? What if it mattered to her when she cut into people's astral body to make them comply? What if she really was a wimp? You couldn't be courageous without conquering fear. What would she become if at the end of her life, Siephied's power got removed as she wanted and she found herself with a lifetime of unresolved emotions and wishes.

Did she want that? Then and now?

Wants and desires did not begin as emotions, but they used emotions to complete. What did she really want? She might as be a stranger.

Luna hadn't changed since she was a five year old girl, fresh off of realizing the corpse and deciding she wasn't going to be the kind of person who was bothered by that.

Long before being a Knight of Siephied would have cut a millenium off of her existence, she'd done it herself. What kind of a person would she have been, had this not happened?

She'd done this to herself. Her own death already begun long ago, who was there to live long?

"Miss Luna?"

"Shhhhh. Having an identity crisis," she said.

He toasted her, and pulled over the next dish in silence.

Lei Magnus might have given her the time to mule, but Spot didn't.

The door swung open and there he stood, for whatever reason.

"What the hell are you doing?" he snarled. Spot had never dared to look at her that way, let alone raise his voice. Something was missing, the mindless adoration.

"None of your business, Spot," she said. "Be a good dog and lay down, and I'll forgive you for that tone."

He only took two steps to the side and ripped one of the fruit chains off the wall, triggering the alarm.

Lei swore under his breath and stood up without regard for his chair, which clattered to the ground. For the first time, Shabranigdu stirred.

When Zelas appeared in the room seconds later, Lei spoke with a double voice: "Zelas, kneel!"

Zelas projected and did exactly that, but it wasn't a respectful pose. She kept her head up, accenting her hatred with an expression too human for a wolf. Luna shut down her emotion channels, forcing herself to keep the poison out, but even that was not enough to drive off the scent.

If her subconscious didn't censor her emotions, would she be sympathetic to her now? She wanted to know.

"Lower your head and stay silent unless I ask you a question. You must answer truthfully, Zelas," Lei added.

At a slow, terror grew in Zelas.

Lei knelt before the devil, but not out of humility.

"What have I done to earn this much hatred?" he asked. "You may answer that, and only that."

"I hate you for taking my freedom," Zelas said.

"How unreasonable. You might attack me otherwise," he said with a scathing laugh. "Now, tell me what you intend to do. Valgarv's messenger thing, whatever that was, did not master the art of coherent speech. I'm certain you have a better idea what the machine at the center of the world does."

"I intend to find a way to get you out of my way," Zelas said. An answer to the question alone.

Skilled at being the pious sage, Lei showed none of his exasperation. "Tell me what your plot is."

"A secret," she said smugly.

"What does your plot want to achieve?"

"The best for me."

Luna didn't bother hiding her laughter. "This is going to take  _long_ , Lei."

He closed his eyes and thought, during which Zelas cast Luna a glance. She mouthed something, which apparently didn't count as speaking.

Mountains? Dragons?

Oh. There was one thing that did not add up : if he had really been the ally of the dragons, in Kataart, it'd be unlikely Filia would not have approached him. At the very least, he would have mentioned Xelloss hanging around her being a hint.

"Zelas, tell me what—"

"Why don't you hand her over to the dragons?" Luna asked.

"Hmm?"

"Your dragon allies. I think I know a way to get her to them, or them here. I bet they can help with the questioning."

"Well, actually ... I have no dragon allies," he said, sound and feeling regretful. "They were too stubborn to listen to me, not that I can blame them. I had no evidence Shabranigdu was not speaking, since unlike you they cannot see my astral side."

Except that elves had since created a spell to see the astral plane. He left something out.

"I could testify for you," Luna said.

He was mildly interested, but not hopeful at all. This didn't taste right for a man desperate for allies. Rather, he felt like forced to do a chore.

"Y'know, Lei, why don't you allow Zelas to speak and she can tell me what really happened there."

"She has you wrapped up," Lei said.

"And beat you to the punch, you're afraid?" Luna drawled. Somewhere behind her, a familiar soul approached. Luna always had a bit of trouble seeing behind her, what with the solid fleshy rib cage there, but she managed to turn her skull a little without drawing attention.

Claire walked up right behind her, using Luna's dragon body as wall against Lei's astral sight. She raised her finger to her lips the moment Luna looked.

"Zelas, when you call me Lady Corpse, what do you really mean?" Luna said to buy time, but also, it was a dare to Lei Magnus. Would he let the devil speak?

"This isn't the time anymore to worry about who you are. It seems I cannot control Zelas properly, so I would rather we leave. Can you teleport?"

"Nah, not gonna join you," Luna said.

"I've got maybe one ally and she's nowhere near. That just leaves me with better the devil I know."

"So that's your choice?"

"No, clearly that's my favorite afternoon snack."

"Well, then." He gathered together energy, but Luna expected an energy ray. When he lunged at her, she wasn't prepared.

With the inhuman speed of a chimera, he grabbed for her chain. She deflected his hand, but could not predict the white metal he wore. A tendril curled around her arm and latched onto the silver, disabling the devil magic at its touch.

The metal tore loose and clattered to the ground.

Lei held the simulacrum of a talisman, which dusted away in his hands.

Luna kicked him in the face and rolled back, rising a few meters away. At once, she unfolded her wings and tendrils.

Claire in her child form slipped past her, borrowing her holy power. Through flow, she implored to the Zenaffa armors and they recognized their origin.

Shocked, Lei locked eyes with the tiny god. "Ragradia? How are you here?"

"Leave, or we will teleport you straight to Valgarv," Claire said.

"What? And give him more power?" Lei asked with a disbelieving shake of his head.

"He is already too strong anyway. Oh, just imagine if he absorbed you and had to deal with an actual alternate ego. Give me some more power, Luna. Let's do it."

Lei's expression hardened into contempt, but his emotions were of frustration and fear. Just barely, he got one of the armors to strike out wings and shot away. He left a hole in the wall, sadly not shaped like him, but a little like the armor's erratic wings.

Claire didn't bother to pursue. "I can tell where he is as long as he wears those. Let them stay with him, I do not mind if he survives as long as he doesn't get in my way."

Zelas, now free of his presence, could stand again — Luna imagined a lesser mind would be bound to kneel forever.

"Mister Dilgear, I thank you for warning me, but next time I would appreciate if you told me  _who_  arrived. Lei and Valgarv both have the power to force me into servitude, I would prefer to avoid that."

Luna had lost track of Dilgear when Zelas arrived, now he emerged from the fridges, covered in frost.

After shaking off, he bowed. "I apologize, lord Zelas. I will remember him."

Why was he bowing to—ugh, never mind.

"Shouldn't have freaked out, Spot. You're an idiot for thinking I'd give into him," Luna said.

"My name is Dilgear and I am  _not_  your dog," he growled. All the familiar fear he felt, but he didn't cower. When Luna made the slightest move to lash out, Zelas moved too.

Luna halted before hitting Zelas.

"You are dismissed, mister Dilgear. I do not believe a situation where Valgarv visits us shall occur, but I am certain miss Claire can produce a few sketches just to be certain," Zelas said.

Dilgear dipped his head and rushed off.

Zelas turned to travel form as she faced Luna and Claire. " _Where_  is the angelsblood talisman?"

Oh.  _Shit_. Had Lei been after that?

"Valgarv took it," Claire said. "I faked the flow of a fragment to avoid you deciding it was worth the risk to turn Luna into one of your trees."

Luna felt nothing, absolutely nothing. She knew her own thoughts on that, which slipped by in a calm rhythm. Maybe Lina had demanded Zelas would not try that. Maybe Zelas had a semblance of respect for life. Maybe she played like Xelloss. Maybe she would try not. She wouldn't have these thoughts if drowning in emotions right now, but they were all the worse for their clarity and her inability to answer them.

Zelas seethed. The walls crumbled under her power and flames leaked down from the ceiling, but instead of attacking, she spread her wings and lifted off. Her projecting discarded, she passed into the night sky.

That was it. Zelas had so much rage and could just choose not to act on it. She lived through them, they didn't define her. How odd ... Luna had always considered will and emotions the same thing.

Claire puffed her cheeks to breathe out. "That went better than I expected. She is quite a deal calmer than a thousand years ago."

A piece of the ceiling crashed down to their left.

"This is calm. Okay," Luna mumbled. Now she felt something, if only a little wonder.

"We should move to another palace," Claire said. "Mind the smoke."

Outside, Spot stood with a group of devils, explaining them what had happened. He cast her a hateful look, but said no word. The group dispersed when they saw her, Spot going with them.

She came out of this night knowing one thing only : when she hadn't looked, Spot had stopped being hers.

Then again, he had always been Dilgear. You can't own what doesn't exist.

**· · · · · · ·**

Luna wasn't recycled into a tree that day or the next. She didn't see Dilgear again and didn't try to find him.

Turned out, she couldn't generate positive emotions, only remove the negative. Missing someone in particular wasn't just a feeling, but there was no ache. Just absence.

At some point, Zelas discovered the beacon Claire had been building in one of the groves. Luna only heard about it afterward, when the devil in charge of bringing her food muttered something about her being corrupting. She'd grabbed him and asked for details.

Zelas allowed her to continue, now it was too late to intercept Xelloss. Luna had coerced Xelloss in part to annoy Zelas, but perhaps Claire had a point about Zelas being unstable. She would have gone after him, despite her fear for Shabranigdu.

So Luna did what was left to her. Wait, think, and once she found a new set of bottles in the new mansion she was assigned, drink.

**· · · · · · ·**

Four days after having sent off Xelloss, Claire sent an astral prod to her. While she wasn't close enough to Claire to really get details, the gist was that she had to support. She ran across the canopy to the designated spot at leisure, but instead of a glow in the distance, she saw a crowd.

Luna had assumed that Claire might use some of her holiness to smooth out the transition of teleporting into unstable area, but no. Orun's astral body stood out sharp due to its silvery flare, Luna bet they'd gone by Sailoon after all.

That much was confirmed when she reached the edge of the field. Instead of a range of injured prisoners, the escort was only Sailoon soldiers, royal couple included. She couldn't see the entire group, because Zelas blocked the view and the noise: she stood in full form projected, thundering at Xelloss for acting on his own accord. She wasn't sure whether Xelloss would blame her, so she made a big bow around Zelas and approached from the other side.

Orun's light encapsulated someone, but what she could see at the edges repulsed her — only for a second, then that feeling was too. Left was a sense of aversion and dirtiness at the sight of the writhing mass of flesh and snakes. Despite the curse, the owner's astral body was marvelous, if disjointed and without internal flow ... oh hell, that was Lyos.

Orun fussed at his side, burning away snakes emerging from his flesh, while Claire hijacked some of Orun's power for subtle stabilizing of his now massive astral body. He held all the power of a god, Luna doubted he'd be healthy even if cursed of that curse.

"Oh, miss Luna!" Amelia darted over.

"The prison break was a grand success, but ... miss Filia's not doing well. Might you get her away from ..." she waved at the mess around them. "All this? Especially Xelloss."

Amelia pointed her in the right direction, and muttered something about Xelloss not getting the pawn issue.

Luna could imagine convincing him to go by Sailoon first would be a hassle in itself. Making him leave behind assets? Not a chance.

Gravos helped Filia walk away from the mess, towards the edge of the forest. Jillas trailed after them.

Luna caught up before they came near enough. "Hey, Filia."

Gravos stopped, and Filia looked over her shoulder. She managed a dim smile. "You're alright."

Gone was the vibrant dragon, replaced by dried out clay that might shatter from being put down too hard. Her hands already had suffered that in the literal sense.

"I'm alright," Luna said. "Don't go in the forest, it's not nice. There's rooms in the mansions, come along."

She led them across the canopy, with a road of her own making. At intervals she projected parts wings or tendrils or claws, and dissolved them after they were thread.

Filia stayed quiet the entire time, but once Luna asked Jillas about how the mission had gone, she got an an impassioned spiel. Luna let it wash over her, along with her own unspoken questions.

What if Luna had listened to Claire and played along with Valgarv?

What if she felt horribly guilty about that without even noticing?

What would it be like to feel as much as Filia did, what with all her compassion and her love, to be betrayed by the one she loved the most?

What if she felt sorry for her Filia? What if she'd dragged her along cause she herself needed someone?

Luna brought her to her quarters, not bothering to see whether any other area even had any beds. Nobody on this island really slept.

Her old room had two beds, one for Dilgear, but her new room only one. She pulled together some divans to make up for the lack. Jillas and Gravos took a side room, but wouldn't go to sleep yet until they were sure Filia was really alright.

Luna watched from a distance, reminded of her own loyal beastman. Old rumor had it that the beastfolk were all chimeras created by an ancient sorcerer intent on creating the perfect slave race — she could believe it, given the loyalty they all carried. Regardless of whether it was earned, though there were limits.

After a while, she got the idea to send them off to fetch some food and ask one of Zelas's servants whether Zelas had new plans. Not that she thought Zelas would relay any plans through servants; Luna just wanted a word with Filia.

Filia sat on the edge of the bed, head down as she looked at her hands. Her fingers were stiff, she could clench her fists but not spread her fingers far anymore. The thumb of her right hand was in a permanent hook.

Hunching down before her, and still without feeling beyond anger, Luna asked, "Who did this?"

Amelia had as good as told her. Xelloss had his personal rules of conduct, but once in a situation those were moot ...

Luna's rules were not to harm those who did not bother her, but once they did ...

"Valgarv used the demon king's voice to turn the wolf pack against the dragons. I was there," Filia said, with false monotony. She pulled her hands to herself.

... in those circumstances, it didn't seem wrong to have some fun.

Filia sniffed, then the tears came.

"I'm sorry, miss Luna," Filia whispered. "Why would Val even be in that alley? I should have listened to you."

"Damn right you should have," Luna said. Almost she launched that this could have been avoided, but that brought her face to face with another what if.

What if she hadn't been the kind of person who tortured at a whim? She would have been more credible then. Filia might have listened.

What if she had listened to Claire, rather than play with Valgarv once they found him out?

She paced to the window, where she fidgeted with the curtain. In the distance, Orun's flare pinched out; they had probably teleported to the shore for Lyos's sake.

"Did Valgarv do anything else to you?"

"Nothing. It's just my hands, mister Lyos is off far worse."

"Just because he didn't touch you doesn't mean he didn't hurt you. Could be words, could be astral attacks, could be sadistic choices," she said. Put some food before the starving werewolf, make him choose between that and his name. Life or identity. "Could be asking you sacrifice your self."

Did you ever pause to think about your self?

Not in the way of being selfish, but rather seeing what one looked like from the outside, because from within the cage the world looked very different.

She sat down aside of Filia and projected a wing, exchanging the harsh scales for feathers.

"What are you doing?" Filia asked without looking up.

"Gonna try to chaff away some of what you feel. Don't need a circle or spell for that." It occurred to her to ask. "Ehm ... are you okay with that? Like, you better be. You already know what you're feeling so it's not like you need to let it brew."

"Did something happen, miss Luna?" Filia asked, now looking up for the first time. How easy it was for Filia to worry about others, and live with it.

"Yeah, but that was long ago, not a big deal," she said. "Wanna dream together? I think I'd like killing some nightmares. Gonna need a sleep spell from you, though."

"We need to change our life law circle," Filia muttered. "Do you remember the crosses in the soul wall? We can do it without cracking anything." Reciting facts.

"Okay, show me."

Without a spell, Filia conjured up a circle below them. Luna's power resonated at once and Filia let go a deep breath.

"What changed your mind about sleep, miss Luna?"

"Just realizing that I wasn't changing, so I figured it's time I talked to myself."

**· · · · · · ·**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The thing with the focus point in the chest area is based on both how Phibrizo stuck his hand through Garv's chest to kill him, rather than use a ranged attack, and on Valgarv doing an spiritual attack that resulted in Xelloss clutching his chest.
> 
> Luna wasn't an outright chimera until the pillar jostled her astral body. What she did before is more like an immortality pledge that keeps the body together, but as more and more is replaced, survival depends more and more on magic. That's why Halciform turned into a shriveled half corpse when the pledge stone broke. 
> 
> What Luna does on herself isn't a formal pledge, of course, and it uses holy magic, but it still holds her together with magic. Stab in the gut? Magic. Stomach infection? Magic. Unpleasant emotion? Magic. Anger that isn't the adrenaline inducing kind? Magic. She still has a human brain which periodically gives off prompts, but Luna's astral side where the mind is only deals with some of them.


	30. Filia's Fracture

**· · · · · · ·**

Luna's absurd dream reflection of Siephied stood on fire. Anything that had looked vaguely like a cute plushie had either rotted or scorched away. Its wings had grown wide and skeletal, feathered because Filia knew Siephied to have those, yet they leaned towards armor when Luna arrived.

Arrived was perhaps too abrupt. Dream time allowed one to have been there all along.

"Woah, my subconscious is nuts," Luna said. "I need those wings. Lyos figured out flight, I should be able to do that too."

"You're here. I can give you the memories of when Claire tried teaching me to fly in human form. She had a few methods," Filia said, not taking her eyes off the sky. "Was that all the reason you wanted to come here?"

"No, it's that. Can you talk to it?"

Filia nodded. "Luna Above, why are you silent?"

"BECAUSE ALL LUNAS ARE. MY LOUSY SELF IS SORRY THAT I ATTACKED VALGarv BECAUSE I WAS TOO ARROGANT TO THINK THINGS THROUGH AND TOO EGOISTIC TO PASS UP A CHANCE FOR TORTURE."

"Okay, capacity for guilt confirmed. Good to know," Luna said. "So  _how much_  guilt?"

The thing didn't reply.

"I don't believe guilt is anything that can be measured well," Filia said.

"Yeah, except you did that when Valgarv —"

The scene shifted to dark tunnels, blocking out the sky and the light. In nightmares, Filia's years of practice in self control did not matter. She screamed.

Luna put a hand on her arm, which stopped the sound but also had Filia lash out.

It'd just hurt.

Val and Xelloss already had. This was dream fact, and it didn't immediately sink in it wasn't true.

Luna stepped back, hands up.

"Don't. Don't touch me," Filia whispered.

"I'm not ... okay."

"I DO NOT ENJOY HURTING PEOPLE FOR THEIR SUFFERING SO MUCH AS I LIKE THE SENSATION OF POWER," Luna Above thundered somewhere out of sight.

"Either my core self is just like me or that's not quite my core self," Luna said. "Look, maybe we should drop the  _me_  topic and do something about you. Like, you've got your bad boy trying to take over the world again, and—"

"GLOBAL DOMINATION IS TOO MUCH OF A HASSLE."

"This was a bad idea," Luna said.

"Likely," Filia said.

"DO NOT LEAVE ME ALONE."

"Oh no no no, dammit. That's part of the feeling I'm cutting away? Come on! If I end up alone it's cause I alienated everyone. I don't want to care for that, it's weakness."

"WEAKNESS IS FRIGHTENING."

Filia tried very hard not to agree out loud with what Luna's monster said.

"Miss Luna, last time we shared dreams, your subconscious wasn't about to reveal this kind of thing. Did something happen?"

"I just realized a few small things about astral powers and me, no big deal. That thing isn't really me, just some silly isolated part."

"WHAT IF I  _AM_  ME?"

The scene changed to the Zephyrian court. A throne rose below the specter in the sky, from which the Eternal Queen declared how holiness does not elevate anyone above their mortal weakness. Before her, Luna was a child. The child Luna looked trapped and small, but Luna Above laughed.

"I BET SHE SAW I WAS ALREADY DEAD."

Filia instinctively bent down to hold the child, but Luna pushed her away, turning into a dragon : a skeletal Siephied.

The Zephyrian court blew away in the wind of Luna's beating wings. Along with that, the world shifted, leaving only holy flow.

It brought them to a burning town and another mind.

"What did you do?" Filia asked Luna, who stood before her as calm a human as ever, arms crossed.

"Brought us to another mind for a diversion. Got myself some lessons from Claire."

Somewhere in the dark, a group of reptilians hunted down one of their own, leaving him to die in the mud.

Valgarv appeared, smirking and with an offer.

_"Do you want revenge?"_

_"Of course I do."_

_"Then I'll claim your life."_

Gravos's mind. Gratitude, salvation, a new goal in life. In Gravos's memory, strength and loyalty mattered, and to him Valgarv looked glorious.

It wasn't how Filia had imagined it. In her mind, Gravos left out the kinder parts, like Valgarv bending down to help him first.

The flow turned once more.

"Why this?" Luna asked.

Gravos grew fur and his form changed. Before Filia could even comment on it, the dream scenery changed to another mind again.

This time, a village burned.

Only a few still lived, Jillas among them. Pierced with an arrow and also missing an eye, he cried out wordlessly.

Valgarv pulled the arrow out and stood straight, staring down at Jillas with a smirk on his face. The town burned all around them, the scent of burning flesh all the sharper because the memory of Jillas was involved.

Valgarv didn't say anything this time. He just ... expected to get loyalty, and he did. Still smirking while surrounded by genocide. Somehow,  _this_  massacre didn't inspire him with blinding rage.

He hadn't really lost anything, after all.

In the orange flames of the nearest house, a little girl with matching hair hid. She herself burned, yet managed to cry tears that didn't vaporize.

"Doesn't that hurt?" Filia asked.

The small Lina looked up with fearful eyes. "Not as much as when my sister finds me."

"Luna, where are you?" Filia called, finally finding her anger.

Right then, the house burned up, and the flow led her a third time.

She'd seen the next place before during her visit to Zephyria.

The pristine little town bathed in sunlight and happy farmers worked hard on their harvest, but at the edge of the road lay a dull green hybrid of troll and werewolf. He looked starved and poorly regenerated.

Fresh off of work, Luna walked by without acknowledging Filia. Or rather, a memory of Luna. The real one wasn't near.

Luna made some earth spirits carry him to her house, put a chain on him and saved him for for only a less deadly fate.

His dream has less details of his own, with Luna filling in the blanks with her own memories. It made for a distorted experience, because her cold efficiency clashed with the despair and hunger of the hybrid.

Something moved inside the doghouse that had sprung within a blink. Filia leaned in to see through the door.

Luna sat inside, around her neck the chain Zelas had once put there. The end hung loose and she fumbled with it. "Luna?"

"My subconscious did this. I wasn't supposed to show you anything. I guess that's how it talks to me."

Filia crawled in and sat next to her. "What are you doing _in_ here?"

"I'm just thinking," Luna said. "I probably don't really know what I want."

"Why not just accept all those feelings you're missing? Maybe you can learn to shut down the negativity purification," Filia asked. It felt wrong, because she herself would like to have it on. Permanently. Knowing it'd not really remove the source of the emotions only barely put a dent in that wish.

"Why? I can't take back the past," Luna said. "There's no point getting caught up in feeling guilt. I'm not you and don't want to be."

"What happened?"

"Nothing," Luna said. "I told you. "Absolutely nothing."

"THAT IS THE EXACT PROBLEM," Luna Above thundered with a little lightning thrown in.

"Don't worry about it. It's not life threatening and didn't break me."

"I BROKE MYSELF LONG AGO."

"Okay, enough of this," Luna said as she shoved Filia out of the dream. "Last thing you need is another person for your collection of broken things."

**· · · · · · ·**

"Gunmoll?" Jillas shook her shoulder so hard, she could feel his frantic grip through the thick sheets.

Filia forced her eyes open to a gorgeous, high class room in white gauze, marble and hideous devil magic.

"I'm awake," she said.

"Can I do anything? Should I go make some tea? I'll go make some tea. Miss Sylphi—"

"Jillas, stop," she whispered. "Please."

His ears flattened in defeat, so she forced a smile and got up.

"We should've brought you a change of clothes," he said. "Want my cloak?"

She peered down at her dress, torn and dirty as it was, and shook her head. "It's not too cold. Where is mister Gravos?"

"He went out to get some wood. Luna left too, said something about trying to fly since Lyos could do it."

Oh, right. She'd seen a glimpse of him after everyone teleported here, he'd been under some sort of curse. He must still be around ... but where would everyone else be?

What would happen now?

Physically, she was whole. Sailoonian healing magic was miraculous, working even when holy magic did not. In the middle of the demon infested mountain, it had saved lives.

The only signs that anything had happened were the stiffness of her hands and shoulder, and the hair Valgarv had snitched off. The remaining strands hung around her unevenly.

She had the idea she should cut it to be even, to forget, but she couldn't muster the energy.

That was ridiculous. She  _had_  the energy, it shouldn't feel like it was too much.

"Where is everyone?"

"The Sailoon people went back to Sailoon, but Orun's still here. There's gonna be some sort of council soon when Sailoon's back. Do you wanna go?"

The answer didn't spring to mind at once, like she was used to. Did she ...

... probably not. She'd hear the results later, as usual. Zelgadis and Orun knew more than others, if anything went on the table now, she'd rather hear from them than the wolf devils.

She would like to check on Lyos, though.

"Can you smell the way to the sea, mister Jillas?"

"You bet, gunmoll."

Overcautious, Jillas didn't merely lead her, he also made sure the path there was as flat as possible. This involved copious use of small bombs. Another time Filia might have objected. Now she just walked.

From above, childlike wails came, but Filia refused to look. Jillas too kept his snout firmly ahead.

Only once they left the morbid forest did they look around. For all the dark magic on the island, the sea was as almost normal, save for the rapid tides. A black yellow sunrise streaked the east, the rest of the sky was a matted grey with a few breaks. The stars were too dim.

The beach contained mostly rocky, black volcanic stones with patches of sand. Nearby, these rocks had been pushed to form a ring that kept water in.

Claire drifted here, her part middle aged human and more mermaid than ever. Lyos lay at the center in fetal position on an elevation, most of his skin now returned to human smoothness.

On the peak of rocks closest to the shore, Orun danced with the rising of the waves. It brought in the flow, almost like a beacon.

"Hey, how's he doin'?" Jillas asked. "Can't get rid of that spell?"

Orun shook her head. "No, but we can make it lessen. Claire can explain better, I'm sure."

On cue, Claire surfaced. "I'm teaching him to project, so he'll need less flesh."

"Eh ... you get any of that, gunmoll?" Jillas asked.

"It's like taking the cannon apart to be able to clean the pieces better," she said, hollow and mechanic. "He will be alright if she succeeds."

Claire nodded. There was no clear expression on her face, which was nothing new, yet she looked more inhuman than ever.

She had to care, though, if she made all this effort to keep Lyos painless. There was a rolled up blanket below his head, and she softly shook his shoulder to wake him.

"Hello, mister Lyos," she said. "How are you?"

"Don't worry, Filia. I'll get better, you'll get better, and then we'll go —" He curled up again, eyes wide and hands going to his mouth. Something red dropped out of his mouth. Claire absentmindedly flicked it out of the cove and rolled Lyos onto his back again.

"Concentrate," she said.

"Lyos, if you're trying to make a heroic speech, you should know that Lina Inverse is probably going to top you whenever she returns to this universe," Filia said, forcing a smile. He'd be alright, at least. She'd also be alright, and Val ...

Lyos faked being irritated and rapped his fingers on a shell. "Damnit, you're right. Lina's always stealing my thunder ... let's hope she does it soon."

What she wouldn't give for Lina Inverse to be back in the world.

It was the thunder of the other Inverse they got instead.

A few trees flew out of the forest and dropped into the ocean. Seconds later, Luna crashed out of the greenery. The specter of armored bird wings was on her back, but they faded as she pummeled to a halt on the rocks.

Filia couldn't help but remember Val's earliest flight lessons, which were no more eloquent. Luna's eyes were hidden as usual, but her mouth was drawn in a grim line as she stood up and dusted off.

"How's he doing?" Luna asked as she climbed on the rock ring.

"Still the same," Claire said, closing her eyes and very pointedly averting her face. Filia thought they must have talked before, and it hadn't gone well.

"You still going ahead with this, Lyos?"

He nodded at Luna. "Absolutely."

"Did I miss something?" Filia asked.

"Court between Zelas and Claire," Luna snorted. "Current plans are to reconquer Har Megiddo or Elmegiddo or whatever."

Filia felt herself nodding as the information drifted past her.

"Aaaand we're gonna need back the two talismans that Valgarv stole. I don't like how she wants  _that_  done."

"They are our only shot at communicating with Lina, may aid in getting her back and she will need all the help she can get for the final goal," Claire said.

"Oh, nice. You're still not telling me what that goal is," Luna sneered.

"I heard something : Zelas said her final goal may be at odds with Lina. I asked them whether they want to recreate Siephied too, Xelloss at least doesn't think so. He also claims Siephied would not want to. Either way, I do think they're trying to create  _something_ ," Filia said.

"Hmm. You think I'll be flipping out over it?"

"I don't know."

"We've got a crisis of not knowing things." Luna spat on the rocks. "If it were something I could physically do she could just lock me up. Gotta be something I could tell Rangort."

Claire just shrugged.

"It'll be fine," Lyos said.

"Life law circles are a thing," Luna said. "You being manipulated is plausible."

Lyos rolled his eyes. "Look, if it's any help, Claire and I are gonna bail soon. We're not all aboard with Zelas right now."

Now Claire had expression, in particular that of frustration. "That was meant as a secret!"

"They're our friends, okay? Well, my friends anyway. Anything I can tell them will be good. Get used to it, I'm keeping that trait."

"Go where?" Jillas asked.

"I'd like Elmegiddo before Zelas gets a foot on the ground, and I'd like a better communication with my dragons."

"Elmegiddo?" Jillas asked. "I keep hearing different names for the place."

"Tel al-Metaliom is the codeword Zelas used for the project as a whole, Har Megiddo made up on the spot when Dalphin and the others found it. I prefer Elmegiddo, the Megiddo of the deities," Claire said.

"It needs another name altogether," Lyos groaned. "Anyway, we're going there once Zelas and you two are gone, so she can't catch us."

"What?" Jillas snapped. "We didn't agree to go anywhere!"

Filia was more grateful than ever that Jillas was willing to snap at people on her behalf.

"Not you, Jillas. Filia and I have been drafted to visit Dynast's island," Luna said, resentment dripping off every word.

Claire wanting to go talk to dragons. Something had happened to give both Luna and her a change of mind. Filia needed to know, but she'd long grown accustomed to being denied information. She didn't ask.

"Filia, Luna, no offense, but you two feel awful," Lyos said. "Can you get that miasma off elsewhere?"

"Oh ... I'm sorry," Filia said as she turned to leave. Luna lingered for a second, then followed Filia in silence.

At the edge of the forest, Luna asked, "Did you look up yet?"

"I won't."

"Why don't we fly back? You can transform here, and there's a spot where you can land near the mansion. It'll be quicker."

Luna unfolded a set of scaly birdlike wings, extensions of her astral body. Siephied had softer feathers, but in form they resembled the images she had seen of the oldest god. How casually Luna used his remains.

"How do dragons fly anyway? How important are aerodynamics?"

Filia shook her head. "It doesn't matter much, we weigh so much most of our lift is by magic. We have an energy balance core within."

"Fabricate energy balance core, that'll do for take 2."

While Luna experimented with defying gravity, Filia transformed and let Jillas climb on her back. It took Luna another five minutes to just levitate without spinning head down. Once she got a gravity center aligned with her magic, she stayed upright.

Flight was ... acceptable. As long as she went in a straight line. It would've been nice if Filia could be amused now.

**· · · · · · ·**

At Zelas's castle, devil chimeras and regular chimera crowded around in tension. They saw Dilgear there, and Luna vanished for a moment.

Xelloss appeared at her side; Filia backed away.

"Miss Filia, I do hope you won't act like that where we are going?"

With a scowl, she turned her back on him. "Don't you worry. I won't fail my son."

"I've been told he's not real," Xelloss said. Still that godawful tone like he discussed the weather. Ha. _I've been told it won't be sunshine._

"Just tell me what me what you're using us for next."

"It'll be easier once we're all together."

He led her to a room, which contained a projected map of an island — Dynast's island.

Zelas, Claire and Luna were there. Luna's mouth was a thin line.

The others spoke, Filia sat down on a chair and listened.

Claire was certain that Lina and the others could not return to the Red World, unless Valgarv allowed them. As it stood, they a talisman just to speak to Lina.

Luna could be used to forge another angelsblood talisman, but it would take weeks. This was too much time for Zelas, who feared Lei and Valgarv coming to control her. She wanted one now.

Zelas listed the living in the same breath as the talismans. Like a collection of keys, one for Siephied's power, one for steering Siephied's power, one god in compact form, and so on.

Zelas dithered between extreme caution and rash decision. She kept changing the plans for invading Elmegiddo in the best way, without risk of the devils destroying it when overpowered, yet her other plan involved jumping right onto Valgarv's island to steal angelsblood talisman back, best if also the demonsblood.

"So, what if he does command you?" Luna asked.

"You must change the scene. For one of my mental caliber, a simple command disperses when the scenario it was given in no longer applies. More complex commands are a problem, so it is important he does not have the time to give those."

"I still think we should take Claire for teleporting," Luna said.

Did that mean she wanted to stop Claire, or ... Filia was too tired to question anyone else. She'd probably guess wrong.

"She can better aid us from a safe distance, she is only a liability near us."

"And you aren't?"

"Not if you do your task with the intended swiftness. Honestly, you are not in a position to complain. Miss Claire told me, we would not have this problem if you had kept him playing. Now we have this mess on our hands," Zelas snarled.

"She's sorry," Filia muttered.

"That changes nothing for us," Xelloss said.

Filia got up and walked away. He didn't follow, thank goodness.

There was an open terrace that overlooked the valley. There was a bench here, or an altar; Filia tried not to think about its purpose as she sat there and waited.

Sylphiel dropped by at one point and told her of the plans of Sailoon's invasion on Elmegiddo. In a hush, she asked whether it was true Claire meant to recruit the dragons for that, instead of Zelas's armies. Filia nodded.

"Maybe if you're there and it goes wrong, you can still try calling to Val," Sylphiel said. "Maybe with a life law circle? I've seen you do amazing things with those."

"I only transferred some power of myself to miss Orun," she said. "Nothing special."

She couldn't remember saying goodbye to Sylphiel.

Amelia and Zelgadis went by in passing, she had a notion she should ask Zelgadis for what he knew. A devil pushed her on to the beacon Claire had built, where Zelas and the others waited. It was her part to teleport them north, it would take too much for Zelas to warp space there.

Filia was whole and had regained the energy to go that far, especially if Claire guided her up there. She was good enough as a husk.

Heavens, she wanted Xelloss to wipe that careless smile off his face.

Just as they were about to leave, Jillas and Gravos stepped up. Jillas carried ammunition and Gravos had a spear of some sort.

"You can't come," she said.

"But gunmoll, we've got to be there as a family. That's our best shot at getting through to lord Val!" Jillas said.

"I'd like you two to go with miss Amelia to Sailoon. Elena, Palu and Molly will be very worried and they deserve to know what is happening. Mister Gravos, you should be able to help with selecting a few more Zenaffa armors that are nearly complete and take them along in case spares are needed."

"But Filia—"

"Please, you'll be safer with them. Your guns are useless where we will go. Please help Sailoon in my stead. We'll be alright."

She gave them an assuring hug, which felt like a lie too. She was sure of nothing, save for their loyalty.

Lyos gave her a salute when they left. Once the group was on Dynast's island, he'd go with Claire. Whether that was to his death, she had no right to criticize when she herself went to it.

**· · · · · · ·**

Lei Magnus had paid Wolfpack Island visit by dropping down straight from above, minimizing the amount of devils he met. Zelas meant to do the same.

The cold bit down through her scales the moment Filia teleported them north. From this altitude, she couldn't even see the island deep below.

She circled above the clouds, regaining her balance and taking in the energy of the environment. If nothing else, feeding was easy up here.

"Sure we can't just teleport him out of there and into a soul jar or something?" Luna asked, leaning over Filia's neck.

"With how distorted the flow is, even if we were within ten meters we would need one amazing beacon to make a link with where ever we'd bring him," Filia said. That didn't even cover how the devil presence threatened to overpower her other senses. Only Dark Star came so close to this suffocation.

Still, Filia could also teleport if sight allowed her to navigate. She could make the jump from up here, if divided by two, but that might reveal their presence. Zelas took them all in and warped space. Within a blink, they reappeared on the ground.

Though dark gray stone made up the island, frost and snow had turned it pale. Pillars stood without a ceiling to support; maybe it had been a castle once, maybe Valgarv had changed the terrain.

Frozen creatures lay around the floor, many whom still lived. An eye moved there, and this one twitched a leg. The woman to the left missed both her arms. The werewolf to the right had his snout ripped off, and over there a dragon lay with their wings pinned on their neck.

This here was Dynast's farm for suffering and she could not change that. Could not help anyone.

Filia forced herself to keep walking. If she freed them now, they'd just be imprisoned again at the cost of the mission.

They passed beyond the fields into a maze of split rock. Here were cages carved in the walls, which held more mobile people. Each was surrounded by skewered undead — children, elderly ... all loved ones.

"Help me," they whispered. She didn't know how.

"Kill me," they pleaded. She could, but hesitated.

Xelloss or Zelas killed all prey alike before they could make any noise, even the quiet ones, so there were not witnesses. Of course they were not mercy killings.

"How interesting, forced immortality pledges," Xelloss said. The same tone he had used to mention the closing of restaurants he did not care for, or innovation that didn't matter. On an earlier day, Filia might have interpreted it as disdain for these tactics, but all she heard now was barely held interest.

"This takes too long," Zelas said. "We have encountered neither troops nor trace of Valgarv. Miss Luna, you can see farther across the astral plane than us, have a look for us."

"Sure," Luna said. She projected herself a stairway of random scales, right behind a pillar to hide herself. She peeked over the stone cautious at first, but then added floating eyeballs.

"That-a-way," Luna said, pointing down south. She smirked, satisfied. Not disturbed by the scenery. "Good news : he's looking like Lyos and I did shortly after the pillar. I'll bet you chimera trouble."

Maybe Val still existed, she couldn't help but hope. She wished she still had the hell gem; maybe it could get a response like it had once.

All three turned to her.

"Filia, no. Don't," Luna said. "Val doesn't exist."

"With all due respect, miss Luna, you're not even sure how you yourself exist."

"Got a point there," Luna said.

"Did we miss anything? Again?" Zelas asked.

When neither Filia nor Luna answered with more than glaring, Zelas continued, "The last time you two did something unexpected, Valwin caught wind of it and Rangort knocked on my door suspecting me of conspiracy. It was a contributing factor to why e was ready to turn on me during the unfortunate scheme in hell."

"We'll tell you if you tell us," Luna said.

"This is hardly the place," Zelas snarled.

"Then whatever we did in our dreams can wait as well," Luna said.

They went on without another word. At about a hundred meter distance, Zelas stayed behind. She would be back up, but did not risk getting close in case she was commanded.

Xelloss was at her side again. Two meters was too close, he only added to the flight instinct.

"Are you ready?" he asked.

Gods, it felt like she never would be. Still, she held out her more mobile hand and filled it with the slow, woven magic used for shields.

Their magic blended into white, laying around the three and expanding to the side. As they had agreed up front in case Valgarv tried to shoot past them. They were also to try and make it block sound, if possible. Zelas had a lot of expectations that Filia wasn't sure she could deliver.

They kept walking in silence, with only a vague plan. Luna would try to claim the talisman, while Xelloss and Filia disabled enemy magic. Should anything go wrong, Zelas would warp them away.

Amid the distant moans and the howl of wind, a new sound reached them. The cooing of doves, and movement of wings.

A flock of doves flew over them, standing out against the blue sky. They landed behind a rocky wall, somewhere in Valgarv's area.

Barely had their cooing stopped, or the rocks and pillars that shielded the group disintegrated.

Valgarv sat on the icy ground, legs crossed and only half facing them. The black wings were out at full, but slouched against the broken walls and pillars.

"Look who is here," Valgarv drawled. "Come to steal my talismans?"

"They are not yours," Xelloss said.

"It was my plan and my machine, so they are mine. You were just an asset to my plan, you idiot."

Filia's heart skipped a beat, she fought down the urge to flee. She'd known Xelloss in blood lust drive before, but now she had lived through being the prey. She closed her eyes.

"Miss Luna, are you—"

"He doesn't have the angelsblood talisman here," Luna said.

"What?" Xelloss snapped.

"He's using the demonsblood to control the pieces."

"Of course," Valgarv said. "Do you think I'd be so stupid to keep an angelic power when these devils expect me to be Dark Star? Too much risks."

Without getting up, he curled his wings ahead. A blue energy sphere formed between the wing's points, growing before he threw it at them.

On impact, the fusion shield flared away like soot on a fire, and with it went the wind barrier before Filia could activate it.

Why? They agreed on the goal ... right?

Was there something Xelloss hadn't told her?

Valgarv stood up. "Useful!"

Luna shoved Filia, and she ran on instinct.

Pointless. He jumped over them, landing on a pillar between them and Zelas.

"Get over there, Zelas!" Valgarv called with a bizarre echo to his voice.

And Zelas obeyed, albeit slow.

"Zelas, quiet. Sit and stay until I say something else," Valgarv said.

Zelas projected as a wolf and sat down, but Xelloss shot away. Valgarv cursed under his breath and hesitated on what to do. Then he went after him.

That was ... so simple. Mere words could still a creature as powerful as Zelas. It wasn't even Shabranigdu's raw energy that did it, just ...  _words._ They were his tool now.

The answer to the failure struck her : Filia did not agree to being used as a tool. She stood alone, despite her company. None of them had the same goal, not even the one who  _should_  be a happy seven year old child.

"Filia, try to teleport," Luna said, pulling at her arm. "Or just fly."

"Oh no you don't," Valgarv said.

The ground opened below them, or perhaps walls grew to separate her from the others.

Filia landed hard on a cold floor. Pain shot through her shoulder, another spot she had mishealed.

Extra careful, she sat up and laid a hand on her bruised shoulder. At least her head hadn't hit the ground. While forcing herself to heal, she looked around.

Luna wasn't here anymore, nor were any of the others.

The area was a simple icy corridor, pale light shining from an unknown source beyond the walls. Had it been another time, she'd have found it beautiful.

"Miss Luna?" she called, not bothering with the others.

Her voice echoed on till she was ready to move.

Nobody answered.

She couldn't sense Luna; there wasn't even any flow. Only the earth below still had stability. In fact, the earth's innate magic seemed to compete with the devil energy.

Having only one thing to do, she stood up and walked. She didn't know for how long.

The corridor led her to a dead end, so she turned around. Where she returned wasn't how she'd come in : an oval, frozen door.

She pushed it open and stepped through. Behind her, it froze shut.

A silver hall reflected her on all sides. The floor sloped up to the center, where a dark, doublefold cross stood. The entire scene struck her as a symbol for the frozen mountains where the Ancient Dragons had died. A pale land with a dark center.

Against that cross sat a child covered in ice. Still, she only took a second to recognize the pale green color below.

"Val?" she said as she increased her step.

"Mom?"

Shaking off the ice, he ran towards her with a big smile. Without thinking, she got to her knees.

Locking his arms around her neck, he whispered, "I missed you."

"I missed you too," she said.

"It's good you finally came, because you have to help us make the world more beautiful."

"What do you mean?"

"Come, mom," he said, tugging at her cloak. "You still have to atone, remember? You have to help me rebirth the world. I have a lot of dark power now. We can fuse magic together, and if you summon Siephied's power into the machine, we can reform the world. Come, let's do it, mom!"

Her son would never say this. Though still gentle, she pushed him away.

"Come out, Valgarv. You're not my son."

The boy looked at her sadly. "But I am. I've been since you took me in."

"You were hiding inside my son," she said, halfhearted at best.

"Yes, but we both want the same thing. I just didn't remember for a little while, but I did work to help out." Within his palms, a white light morphed into a dove. "I was busy all along. Really mom, I want what they want. We looked all over the world, we planted seeds and we inspired. We're making paradise, mom."

Filia clasped a hand over her mouth, stifling ... something. A scream, a plea, a prayer — everything.

 _They'd been there the entire time_. Val's quirky little attraction to doves and other white birds. It'd been so cute, his protectiveness of them. She'd jokingly told him he could open a pigeon messenger system, all the while believing he'd grow out of it eventually.

"It wasn't supposed to end with you hurt, mom. When the dragons started going round we were extra watchful, but then the cat happened. If we'd have been told, we would have teleported safely out of the city. None of the plan was supposed to hurt our family."

"Val, if that's true, why are we and others being hurt now?"

He looked up, a sad little smile on his face that looked too mature for him. "Certain pain is necessary for the world to keep turning. You were right about that, mom."

"This is not how I meant it," she said. "Stop it, Valgarv. Please."

The boy frowned and turned away. Within the motion, he grew taller. She expected Valteira or Valgarv, but his clothes turned to a white cape with feathers atop.

The one who turned around was a stunning woman in her prime, her only resemblance to Valgarv being her hair color and the twisted black wings.

"Are you certain you want us to stop?" she asked. "I have come to save the world from the Lord of Nightmares. You are a dragon, child of the holy. Why do you defy the one you should pray to? With your god dead, I am the closest you have for divine guidance."

Filia balled her fists, finally having someone to steer the blame on. Volphied had corrupted her child ... was an easy thought.

"You shouldn't have killed us. He was the last Ancient Dragon, destined to set right the world. They were always a special clan, born long before the seed of despair grew in my sibling. You have a lot to make up for," Volphied said.

"Destroying the world won't make anything right," she said, Filia covering her ears.

The voice still came through.

Volphied smiled sweetly. "That is easy to say when saving the world is as simple as providing some dead energy and letting someone else fire. That too cannot be done without hurting someone, in this case the one who already suffered so much. Imagine if saving the world were more complicated. It only leads to reason that the price of pain before paradise would be higher."

"Nobody wants change like this. You should have just asked us for help."

"Should I? What's so different about that and all the other people who used you? At least Val gave you kind memories, while the gods and Xelloss and Zelas pushed you around without regard. I swear, had we known to flee before those dragons found out, it all would have gone better. Meanwhile, Xelloss had a great time breaking you, glad to finally have an excuse. Had he not been required to leave, he would have gone on all day."

"You can read emotions, not minds ..." she whispered. Heavens, why did she even try? This one thing was probably true. Xelloss was a devil, never forget.

"Does that change that this is the kind of world where people like him exist? Don't you want a world where the war ends?"

Memories flickered in her mind.

"That ... Valgarv, Volphied, who ever you are ... it won't work. Wars won't end by removing the gods and devils. Please, you don't need to kill anyone but Shabranigdu and maybe some of the retainers. A world without them still would have war, you've seen it, right?"

"No, it won't. We would remake it so that it cannot. It'll be better that way."

Something snapped in her mind and she backed away from him or her or it.

"They won't be real people," Filia said, more desperate than she wanted to. "Either everyone will be just a puppet or they will be trapped in their minds."

The way the Volphied mirage smirked told her this was exactly what they wanted.

"I won't do it," Filia said. "Please, stop this. It won't help."

Valgarv's old form replaced her again. "If you're going to be like that, you're just in the way. I don't need that."

He shifted behind her, pulled the cross from the ground and rammed it through her stomach. At first the burst of pain didn't register, she only buckled to her knees by sheer force. The long end bore back into the ground before she bled.

What would have killed her by breaking her spine only felt like it did. The cross was a magical construct, pure devil projection. She lived, but with a curse tearing right through the core of her devil senses. It went haywire, telling her devils were everywhere, even within.

The walls melted away, revealing a greater hall around them. There, Zelas was anchored to the physical plane in the form of the quadruped wolf, the one she used to be covert rather than fight. Nothing held her, save a command.

Xelloss knelt at her side, also bound by nothing, but some command of Zelas.

"Maybe you two will listen better than she did," Valgarv told them. "Once, I told you all that the world is a trap. Xelloss, you didn't like that at all, did you? You're about to dislike things even more. Zelas never told you the full plan, did she?

The reality is that she rebels against the Lord of Nightmares as much as I do. That is why she won't tell you the plan."

Filia knew to expect fury when Xelloss opened both eyes, but terror was rare.

Valgarv exchanged his form for that of the child he should be, so he could look right into those eyes.

"The Sea of Chaos is cruel, we understood that and so did Siephied. That's why he went back to Chaos, because that was the only way to escape the joke. The whole world is a bad joke."

The floor grew black arms surrounding him, which pulled him to the ground a few meters before Filia.

On the astral plane, Valgarv formed another lance.

He pierced it through Xelloss; down the flat of the cone to the point on the astral plane, through the back on the physical.

Xelloss screamed, but the dark hands from the floor wouldn't let him either move or withdraw his projection.

"Zelas, when I say, tell him to keep his tongue, that includes all sound, not just words. Tell him that," Valgarv said with Shabranigdu's echo.

And so she did. Xelloss stopped screaming. The arms holding him down grew thin streams across the floor toward her.

Valgarv shifted behind her and jerked her free hand back on the cross. The streams ran up the cross until she felt their sting below her fingers. It pierced into her astral body and forced the power into her hand, but the connection was fragile. She almost pulled her hand loose.

At this slight movement, the arms pushed into Xelloss. He didn't scream now, but he cringed.

"It will be your choice this time," he said. "All you have to do is let go and he'll be gone. It's the one thing I agree on with golden dragons : devils must die."

Oh gods, she should and now she could.

Yet she only held on tighter. Whether it was to defy Valgarv's madness, whether she knew he was the only way to channel Shabranigdu, or whether some foolish part still cared for him, she could not tell.

In the middle of everything that broke, Filia would not fall to vengeance. It was the last she could still be.

"And if I do, then what?"

"You're going to live to see the world end, and as it should be, you will take part in it."

If the world would end, it wouldn't matter whether or not she would kill Xelloss here. As if it really was her — this was another's power holding him down, and Valgarv could decide at the drop to change his scheme. She held on.

"Forgot someone?"

A bit of gravel fell down.

Luna had carved a hole in the ceiling. After tossing away the rock outside, she dropped down between Zelas and Valgarv.

"I didn't forget you," Valgarv said. "You know you can't get off the island without being seen, and I know that too. Your ticket for leaving is in here."

"I dunno, it's pretty empty there."

"Only because I make them keep a ring around me. They're bothersome filth."

"Sure, and it's got nothing to do with your secrets." Luna nodded at Xelloss. "On that topic, what are you doing to him?"

"I'm breaking his mind so I can recycle his power into something greater and worthier. You know, just like Siephied wants to do to Lyos."

"Siephied's dead," Luna said.

"Right, and they're trying to make him anew, and you're one of the pieces." He flicked a claw to summon a spherical vision of hell.

Within it were images of Rangort's world, closing in on ... was that Lezo? He had some traits of Zelgadis ... and there was Milina together with a man brimming in the same red energy.

"Rangort turned against Zelas because he realized Zelas wanted to seize control of Siephied and Shabranigdu," Valgarv said. "I used those aspirations of her for our benefit : she built the machine for me, and on my instructions without ever realizing. Now I am taking over, and you? What are you going to do?"

The words rolled over Filia, pushed little pieces of information in place. Everything fit, what she already knew and what she suspected, and the way devils were.

"Fascinating. Probably more so if Zelas hadn't told me there'd be something like that already," Luna said. "Too bad I hit my anger ceiling already."

"No wonder you don't understand! How could you understanding anything about me when you have no pain?"

"Aww, poor you. I'm  _such_  a horrid audience. Can't feel for all my sins, won't feed any of your whims," Luna said. "It just makes you wanna write raging odes of misery, right?"

Valgarv tried to grab her, but she flared her own wings out and formed a barrier around them.

The arms clawed at her light, in vain. Luna had anchored within the earth, invoking not just her own strength but that of Gaia. At least until he tried harder, she could ignore him.

She squatted before Filia.

"Did you give up?" Luna demanded.

"T-there's just nothing I can do even if I try. I can't fuse magic, my son won't listen and Valgarv is too caught up in his misery to hear." She forced the words out through the pain that she couldn't tell apart anymore. She couldn't tell whether the cross through her body or in her mind tore at her more.

"His misery? He's making us miserable but you're caught up in feeling sorry  _for him_. It's revolting," Luna sneered. "Filia, take it from another egoistic monster, ... you gotta stop forgiving people if they keep doing the shit they need forgiveness for. It's wasted on us."

Luna laid a hand on the cross, meaning to break it.

"Don't," Filia said. "It'll kill ..."

Luna didn't let go, but she stopped trying to move it.

"Ugh, martyring again? You're not even martyring for a good cause. Now, nagging people,  _that's_  your talent. You sorely disappoint me by not nagging Valgarv about the thousands of innocents he killed. Y'know, when he tore Dark Star cross the world? Nice prelude to kill you and he's going to  _do it again_. He should ask  _your_  forgiveness, not the other way around!

You too are the last survivor for a genocide by the servants of the gods, yet that didn't make you throw out all your compassion, right? Where's  _your_ vengeance spree against the Black World gods?

My squeaky little sister missed the mark. Making things right  _shouldn't even matter_ , it's not your fault his people got offed by yours. That was not a choice you ever made or ever would make."

Filia  _knew_  that, purely in her mind, but everything she might do against Valgarv  _felt_  like sin.

"Shut up!" Valgarv roared. "You don't understand how it feels! She lies to herself, but I see the truth about the world."

"Oh, you just broke my heart," Luna said. "Look at all the pieces."

Valgarv let go a scoffing laughter. "Of course you don't. You've got nothing to break. I've been dealing with grief since I was a child."

"Yeah, and  _only_  your own grief, everyone else be damned. I at least admit I'm selfish."

"You just live that way cause you're afraid," Valgarv said. "Volphied told me about you. You're the epitome of godly selfishness. The little lady ... you only befriended her because you wanted to use her power. What a prize, to find a dragon willing and capable to drag you out of hell. Too bad you came back wrong."

"Nice dodging of what I said there. Anyway, yeah, I did," Luna said with a shrug. "So what? It doesn't stop me from living, it only stops me from being emotionally exploited like right now."

"Oh really? You can't take away your positive feelings, but you can lose the sources of that. Where's your pet? Did he die or did Claire heal him?"

Luna breathed out deeply, something she did to keep her anger in check. The first time Filia had seen it, they had revived themselves in the hall where Liliane had tried to kill Luna.

Filia had assumed good grace that Luna had spared Liliane, now she wasn't so sure. Maybe killing a queen was too much of a hassle.

This time, Luna had no reply. Her hands dropped to her sides. "He left."

"Figures. You're not worth any loyalty." He looked over his shoulder and wing, at Zelas. "And neither are you."

He lost all interest in Filia and Luna. When he passed Xelloss, he had one of the arms push its thumb through Xelloss's wrists.

When he spoke again, Filia could hardly understand. He might have ordered Zelas to speak now, might have started to argue about chaos, but Filia's attention slipped.

Holding onto awareness took everything.

When Valgarv spread his wings to surround Zelas, and all his voice became an incoherent drone, Luna ... relaxed. She projected her own wings, surrounding them so Filia couldn't see Valgarv anymore.

"Here's the deal, he's playing with other toys now. We stay put, he'll ignore us. If he turns to us, act bland."

Luna set her own hand on Filia's, helping her hold onto the cross. With this motion, some of Luna's holy energy seeped to Filia.

"You wanna know the truth? Yeah, I did befriend you cause your powers could be useful to me. That shouldn't matter when you're dying and I'm the one helping you," Luna whispered. "Tell me what you hope would happen if you got through to him."

"I ... if he stepped down now and Val returned, we'd go—"

"Val's fake. What if Valgarv said he changed his mind? Could you do that by making him realize he is evil, or would it involve giving him what he really wants? Happiness or whatever it is?"

"I don't think he deserves to suffer more, so—" Luna clamped a hand over her mouth.

"I get sick hearing that. Parroting your old temple made you think you're the sinner and he's the martyr suffering. The messiah who asks the entire world. He asks too much."

"Like you?" Filia asked. "Don't you ask too much too?"

"Ah ah, bad girl. I'm the wrong messenger, but that's not the point, you see.  _You_  never asked for payment, Filia. Jillas, Dilgear, Gravos, Xelloss and I," she said, holding up one finger for each. "I bet there's more that I don't know about. You've forgiven all of us. Even now, you're forgiving him, but not yourself. Why?"

"He's just wrong about the way to help the world." Parroting what she told herself in quiet moments.

Surrounded by skulls of the victims, she could still try to claim her people were saints. But not for long. The way one learned at the temple of Vrabazard was thorough. One came to not merely believe the way, one lived it. She had never really able to shed her temple.

"Filia, no. He never helped the world, he only said so. Little vibrations in the air. What is actually  _happening_  that proves this? Did you ever see him doing anything good? Cause if you're gonna throw a fit cause I turned out to be a bitch, he better not get a green card cause of his sob story.

Ooh, I can redeem him cause I understand how sad he is! Woohoo. He sure as hell doesn't give a shit about how sad  _you_  are," Luna sneered. "Hey, wanna have  _my_  sob story? When I was little someone killed me, but I put my body back together like an immortality pledge does and here I am : a living dead girl, cut and bound by her own strings. Disgust was the first I cut away, then everything else followed."

Luna brushed aside her bangs and turned Filia's face to look in her eyes. "Now I told you that, did time rewind to undo my sins?"

"No," she said. "But—"

"You're in pain now, you've got a tragic past  _and_  present. Why are  _you_ not hurting others?"

She didn't want to, but—

"It's not the same as with him? Why?"

"Because ... he's good under there, even if he made mistakes."

Even if she couldn't believe it anymore, her words took time to reflect it. Luna hardly needed to continue.

"Good is in actions, not in beings. Answer the question. Does his past undo his actions? Does you feeling sorry make a difference for those he chooses to hurt?"

Filia shook her head.

"Then don't you dare forgive either of us," Luna whispered.

Infecting the devil lance with her own holiness, Luna held one end steady and broke the other, only sending a small jerk through Filia's astral body. After tossing one end, she pulled out the other in one swift move. Filia slumped forward, but Luna caught her by the shoulders.

"Let's make a deal. I'll quit torturing people on a whim if you let go of your obsession with angsty criminals. I'm probably doing it for the wrong reasons, but hey, it's something."

Filia knew she would hold that, and the Valgarv she wanted to know had never existed.

She looked at him one last time, saw the vestige of everything he symbolized for her — mercy, redemption, atonement; the harvest of the sacred — and let it die.

What remained: a dragon who smirked while surrounded by the suffering he claimed to relieve. If he made a new world, pain would be considered justified if he caused it. He would become the cruel, judging god that he claimed to eradicate.

What kind of messiah asks for atonement by taking away all chance of mercy?

The woman at her side presented nothing sacred, but she offered change by reason.

Filia braced against the ground and pushed herself on her feet. One hand she kept on her wound, forcing her power to heal.

"We should kill him," she said. It still felt like her son was somewhere there, but she couldn't let that feeling matter.

"I love that sound, you know, but we gotta survive first. Let's get the talisman, get out of here and stop Lyos from existence failure. Then we can think about death, kay?"

"Let's."

Luna projected a dragonic claw around her arm and dug it into the ground. Deeper below were the spirits of earth and magna, now rushing up at her command.

Ignorant at the way earth worked, Valgarv ranted on before Zelas.

Luna did two things before chaos exploded. First she had earth spirits undermine the barrier trapping them. Second, she arranged for a gathering of magmatic spirits circling Valgarv. She paid them in holiness and flow, which they eagerly took : they had never liked what the devils did to nature here.

On Luna's command, the entire hall broke into chaotic heat.

Zelas escaped her binds, grabbed Xelloss and shot off.

Baffled, Valgarv stared after them. He cast a quick glance, saw Luna and Filia still in place, and took off after them. Barely had he gone, or Luna broke the barrier.

"That was easy," Luna said. "Just a wild guess, but he's got no clue how to handle his power without setting up anything."

Luna shoved her down a tunnel. Filia didn't even need to tell her which one, the angelic flow stood out by contrast.

Tunnel, door, darkness and the dim light of the astral plane. Astral corridors again, like in the mountains, but older and deeper into astral planes.

Luna stopped when a door blocked her path. Surely the Siephied Knight could blow it up, but she turned to Filia as if daring her to be proactive. A dim version of offense flared up in Filia's mind. Had it been a lighter mood, she would have scoffed at the challenge.

Filia tore the door off its hinges without ceremony, prompting a smirk from Luna.

Once Luna was through, Filia pushed the door back in place. She stayed there, leaning against the icy surface. The cold hurt, but she barely minded as it sunk in what was happening.

She'd run from her child.

Her child was gone.

Never had existed.

Tired eyes looked back from her own reflection, the thing Valgarv had always been after. Someone to reflect himself on, and for that ... her son. He'd drowned his own last chance. He found value only in himself and his goals, at the cost of the world.

Here she found her first seed of anger at him. Heavens, when compassion didn't compel her, she had so much reasons to hate what he did.

Far away the howl of a wolf brought her to the present. Right now the wolf devils fought for their freedom against Filia's fallen idol.

She steeled herself and turned to Luna, who had burned away much of a tarry mass on the other end of the room. Strings anchored a gooey cocoon to the walls, sealing the angelsblood talisman within. Its effect was nigh rendered invisible, only the sharpest holy creatures would sense it.

Every time Luna got deeper, the tar moved back place. Burn it with fire, and more just oozed from the walls.

"Dammit, he figured out a way I can't just summon it to me."

Val had stolen the talisman right under their nose, while Granny Aqua became Claire. From there, it had come to the hands of the wrong devils. She had so much to say about that, but kept it in.

"How did Zelas keep it in place to begin with?"

"Right, should have figured that."

Luna twirled the metal off her neck, forming it into a long chain. Like a whip, she threw it against the rock. This pierced right through. When Luna pulled it out, the angelsblood talisman hung at the end.

"We have to clear that," Filia whispered.

"Got it," she said, holding out her hand with the crystal in it. Filia locked her hand over it and Luna closed her fingers around hers. They removed all holy flow that tied it to Valgarv, bringing it into their service.

Through it, Filia saw a nearby island and tuned into it. From there, they could work on a longer jump.

With one golden flash, they changed location.

Out here, it was almost warmer, or maybe that was just the absence of devil influence.

"I'll transform after the next jump, so we can fly," Filia said. Luna nodded.

This time, Filia brought them far into the sky. Luna stayed afloat by her wings, but sat down between Filia's wings after a second.

Filia took a deep breath and could feel the flow again. Better than ever, in fact. Having both Luna and the talisman in the same place worked wonders, even the contours of earth against sky stood out.

So did the chase. Devils moved out of the way as Valgarv in full dragon form plowed after Zelas and Xelloss. Shabranigdu´s darkness poured out beyond his hollow, most of it aimless; he could hold more than he could use.

The wolf devils stayed below the water to drown out any command they might hear. If anything, Valgarv did not seem to know how to override the elements, so he tried to herd them back to the island.

Luna tapped her on the neck. "Yo, I know I told you to quit forgiving perpetual assholes, but you wanna help them? If he commands Zelas to use her intelligence to smooth out his plan, we're in deep shit. Does Claire even know how to operate the machine?"

"Xelloss is also the only one who knows how to contact miss Lina across the worlds," Filia said, and left out how badly she just didn't want anyone to die.

"Same page then. Listen, they can probably get away once Valgarv can't see them anymore. We just need to buy them a head-start. How much power can you channel right now?"

"With three gods cut off from the flow, only as much as amounts to Ragradia's outer power, and that's weak. You saw the curse."

"It'll do," Luna said, tossing up the talisman and catching it. "Go after them, stay high."

Using cloud cover for the stretch and teleporting across open areas, Filia caught up with the chase. It hardly took her energy, Luna must be aiding her.

At full form, Valgarv was even bigger than Val at his peak. His head alone was the size of her whole body and had feathers the size of her wings. Despite the poison in his astral form and the fleshy tumors in his wings, he had all the magnificence of the greatest dragons. Siephied's mirror image in this species, the feathered dragons. This parallel to holiness she put to death as well.

Filia raised her voice in wordless summon. Siephied's power came weak, but radiant nonetheless. Another thing she should not think of as holy.

On her back, Luna manifested wings and those tendrils to hold the power. Between her hands, the talisman pulled it all into a sharp star.

Right then, Filia took a dive.

Luna's attack blinded her on both planes. Only the roar that shook her to her bones told her it had been a hit. Following it was the crash of water.

When the flare faded, the ice and water took its place of concealing. Valgarv had crashed into the ocean, which now rushed back in to cover him.

Luna just whistled. "You know, I do so love packing a punch. Now where's ... there they go."

Zelas's bright form shot out of the ocean for a blink, then she shot southwest.

It would be a good time to clear the premise, so Filia teleported higher. Taking in the sunlight and wind, she shed the last remnants of devil taint and let holiness heal her.

"Miss Luna, thank you," Filia said at last.

"Hmm? Oh. You're welcome. So, what's the closest to where Lyos is that you can teleport to?"

"If you keep lending me power, that will be the temple beacon in Dills."

"Keep channeling me energy, I'm going to feed some of those nature spirits, and they can give you nature flow," Luna said. At those words, she released holy power towards a nearby flock of cloud spirits. As soon as she did this, they were hers to command. She set them to work on speeding up Filia's flight.

Flight became easier, breaking less of a strain. In silence, Filia flew on and did nothing but calm down, and think.

Val had been a lie, she told herself, but still ... the lie had been so convincing that even emotion eaters were fooled. If nothing else, the feelings had been real enough.

In this scheme, feelings were tools and risks. Not only for the devils Zelas guarded herself against, but the kind that made people weak when they should be strong, the kind that made people harm themselves, and those that exploited it.

When guilt did not weigh down Filia, she answered with rage. Experience only meant she knew when to temper it, and express it in ways more effective than a stampede. Adding to the bargain between her and Luna, whatever its worth might, she promised herself the end of being the weakest link. She had to know more, achieve more ... change. Nobody should have a hook in her anymore.

"Miss Luna, what did you mean with wrong reasons?"

Luna waited long before she answered.

"Look, ... dammit, just once. Just once I'm going to do one of those introspective rants. Not making this a habit. You are the reason I said it out loud, or maybe that I confronted it ... I don't know.

There's people I love. I've hurt them and I didn't care. I still don't, but I don't want to find myself without power one day, and find myself hating the monster I am. I know what you feel like when under the burden of guilt. It's also that ... I want to be me, but who I am is intricately linked to Siephied's power. I can't shut down what I do to myself, it's not conscious. Don't know whether I'd be happier on the other side, but doesn't matter. Can't change my feelings or my past, but I  _can_  choose to act a different way.

You've got too much guilt, I've got too little ... somewhere in the middle, there's gotta the point where it's just right for us. Same thing for worrying and so on."

"You're right. Let's find that spot," Filia said softly. "There is such a thing as too much guilt."

Luna chuckled, tapping her foot on her shoulder as one would pat a human on the back. "Hey, don't get  _too_  cold."

"I won't. That's why I'm going to ask whether you stopping mister Lyos is also for the wrong reasons? When we spoke about mister Dilgaer, you were in favor of letting people do what they  _thought_ they wanted."

"I was wrong, okay? Dilgear didn't want to be my pet after all. I just ... got in his head. Not with magic or flow, just by making his world small and about me. They call it Storkhelm Syndrome in fancy circles. Maybe Lyos doesn't really want to die."

"I'm certain he doesn't want to die, but it's a sacrifice he deems worthy.  _Should_  we stop him?"

"Is it worthy at all? Come on, it's not like we really know what's going on. If Valgarv's right about everyone being on the sacrificial altar ..."

"That might be. Perhaps  _that_  is what Zelas would disagree on with miss Lina," she said, wondering whether she should go on about Dilgear or whether Luna herself would say anything. "Alright, at the least we need to talk with him."

**· · · · · · ·**

The shrine at the foot of the Kataart Mountains consisted of little more than a few square rooms and a leaking ceiling. What power it held was a legacy of nearly a thousand years of rooting below the sacred mountains.

The dent in the floor where Xelloss had dropped had been patched up with gravel, likely by the maintainer.

"What a mess," Luna said. "Doesn't fit the amount of power stuck here. Bet there's a story to this."

There was, but Filia didn't have the mood to tell. Her mind was with energy traps.

"Let's be quiet. The retainer of the area is an elderly couple, they must have their sleep."

"Think we can get some too?" Luna whispered.

"Maybe. As long as you have the talisman, nobody can move their plans ahead, I think."

"Unfortunately, that's true."

Luna and Filia whipped around.

Xelloss stood in the doorway, hand up in casual greeting.

"Good to see you got away safely," he said. "As did we. Fortunately, the magic you handed me during our, ahem, disastrous fusion wasn't lost to me. I kept it, and here we are. My liege's outside, feeding."

Filia's mind went right towards the humans that lived here, and Xelloss seemed to guess.

"Don't worry, there's devils and animals around here. Such old humans wouldn't live long enough anyway."

Words were wasted on that, he could eat her disgust just as well in silence.

"We worried how we'd find you, but now we won't have to look," he added. "You've got a talisman, right, miss Luna?"

Luna crossed her arms. "Oh, you'll be looking."

"Oh come now, this isn't the time for that kind of thing, isn't it? We still have to invade Elmegiddo, fortify it and ... I'm actually not sure. How much of what Valgarv said was true anyway?"

"As if you don't know one of the game masters," Filia said.

"Miss Filia, I'm ... "

She looked him straight at the eyes, but he kept them closed.

He leaned back, out the door, and called, "My liege, our dragons arrived, I may need a little assistance."

Filia and Luna exchanged one look, and they agreed. Filia fired up her teleportation magic, bringing them both a few hundred meters up. Filia transformed at once and shot away.

Below, Zelas had projected and she spotted them right away. Filia just barely managed to teleport away.

Astral sight being so limited, Filia and Luna had one advantage : Zelas and Xelloss had to project to see where they were. It slowed them down enough for Filia to flit all over the place.

Filia gathered up as much strength to jump again, this time to Rygoon.

On arrival, Filia already knew they had a passenger — Xelloss had caught the same flow as her and lifted himself and Zelas along.

Sparing no time, Filia teleported between Rygoon's branches.

The tree would give them cover, and Filia could teleport much better here. She went deep into the tree, until she found one of the farthest tunnels. Filia took human form and they took pause.

"Does Zelas know you can fly?"

"Unless one of her troops saw us, nope."

"Let's separate. While I distract them, you go to Lyos and Elmegiddo, and find out to what extent we've been kept in the dark. If what Valgarv said about the plan is true, then using the machine would be handing him more power."

"Separating's ... probably going to work, if we use a trick to simulate me. Great idea. What when Zelas catches you, Filia? I didn't drag you out of that pit for you to just make another stupid sacrifice. Heavens know you're looking for a way to die, you might just provoke her."

"If I don't provoke her and assuming she catches me — which I don't intend to let happen and you should have more faith in my teleporting ability — will I be alright?"

"Well, I survived being found without talisman and she didn't make me a tree ... Okay, here's what you don't do : don't mess with life laws on her, don't talk about identity. Messing with minds is their kind of taboo, like how we mortals have this thing against ... I dunno, eating the flesh off of living victims."

Filia shivered, half remembering how annoyed Xelloss had always been when she dragged him with words. She shut that line of thought down quickly. Even if that was unpleasant for him, he had no qualms about doing equally unpleasant things to her, and worse.

An odd sizzling sound jarred her from her thoughts.

Luna pried off a tiny piece of the talisman, released some of its energy. It settled into new form.

While holding them apart with her projected claws, Luna pulled loose some of the magic metal around her neck. Forging that into a long, thin thread, she embedded the smaller piece into it. This she curled around Filia's neck.

"Here," Luna said as she stood up. In Luna's place, a ghostly imprint of her remained, structured like the vision spells they had used to communicate for years.

"Let's meet in the valley of the ancients," Filia said. "And please be careful."

"Back at you. Don't provoke Zelas, okay? I mean it."

"I won't," Filia said, all the while doubting she even needed to.

"Hey. If I don't meet him again, I guess ... you can tell Dilgear I'm sorry."

"That's a huge stretch, you not surviving. I expect you to do it yourself, miss Luna."

Luna smirked. "If he turns into an astral chimera, I'm gonna have a hard time convincing him. I'll see."

It could be better, but it could also be worse.

Filia left to be seen by Zelas, the vision Luna moving at her side.

She made sure to be seen, made sure to flee, and left Rygoon behind.

In the air she transformed, and the mirage Luna sat on her back. From here on, she prepared for another great jump.

This time, she didn't mind that Zelas and Xelloss hitched along.

This was her first time really stringing along a devil. Buried under everything she tried not to feel, she had a little light left to enjoy that fact, and a lot of fire to expand it to more than just them.

She would need to string along many more to have a say in this cruel game.

**· · · · · · ·**


	31. Xelloss's Truth

**· · · · · · ·**

Prisoner 101, get away from your captors. Xelloss preferred prisoner 420, feigning obedience while undermining someone's devious plan from the inside, ultimately ending in their timely demise. Alas, this was 101 exactly because he and Zelas had made it so simple.

In between escaping from the Valgarv-Shabranigdu blob and there and now, Zelas had chewed him out with every breath on why their fusion shield had failed.

He'd love to answer, but he had no idea. Everything was in place, it wasn't stolen magic, they agreed on the goal. Sudden burst of Filia's martyr mode? Didn't match the emotions he got from her; if anything those belonged to a betrayed person.

To make matters worse, they weren't getting any closer to finding out. Xelloss had sparse teleportation energy and had to carry along Zelas on the flow. That required a lot of economy. He could probably keep up on his own, but that'd leave him to deal with a talisman endowed Luna Inverse all on his own.

So he wasn't sure how good it was when it became clear Luna wasn't around anymore.

Zelas noticed first that her movements were too repetitive. They hadn't tried attacking them to buy themselves time.

Five jumps across random holy areas of the north, they were certain Filia meant for them to stay close on her trail, but never close enough to see across the astral plane whether Luna was really there. She left a holy radiance that implied she did ... but only implied, and physical eyes can be fooled.

And it just happened to be so that miss Luna and miss Filia both knew vision spells. It wouldn't be the first time they rediscovered old magic on a whim.

This time Filia brought them to a sacred lake near the border of Zephyria. She shot off through air the moment she arrived, but didn't teleport yet.

Zelas and Xelloss stayed back, waiting it out this time. Eventually Filia started looking around, and slowed down a little. The probably-not-Luna on her back didn't respond.

"Either miss Luna can teleport or she can fly, else she has no hope of losing me if I were to return to Rygoon," Zelas snarled. "I have to go back and retrieve my talisman."

"What do we do now?" Xelloss asked. "Can miss Claire do anything with it, or will miss Luna take it elsewhere?"

"Later! We will separate. You retrieve that dragon. Find out why the fusion shield failed and do what you can to restore it."

"As you command, my liege. However, is our ability to fuse magic truly that vital? Can we not use others?"

"It is your ability to fuse the magic of Siephied and Shabranigdu. There are other candidates, but  _we_  cannot bring them to this world. Claire with a talisman and the aid of the Apostle of Chaos might be able to. Now stop stalling me, I have to find Luna."

He didn't need to guess. Luke and Milina. With Luna's power at her disposal, Claire could teleport all over the world. Lina had no stakes in with the wolfpack, she might just help out.

Zelas stopped projecting and beelined south; he couldn't tell whether to Sailoon or her island. Ah well, he had orders.

Tough orders that he had no idea how to carry out. He'd been made to kill dragons, not to get along with them. He never really had partners, no, he took pride in being the mysterious, distant priest. Capricious Lord of Nightmares,  _of course_ he had to end up in a situation where vital magic depended on getting along with a dragon.

Without having to carry around Zelas, he could pin point his arrival with much more precision. When he flashed into view right before Filia's mid flight, she reeled back and veered to the left. He just shifted to her side the old fashioned astral way.

"Hello again, miss Filia. Quite a nice trick!" he said. With a flick of his staff, he poked the illusion apart.

She teleported a few meters away and kept flying. Around her, the flow geared up for another big jump. He shifted after her across the astral plane, grabbed her tail and pulled her into warped space.

When he dropped her out on ground level, she tried teleporting away again, but he held on.

"Miss Filia, it's not like it matters whether you run," he said. Really, all this fear was a little excessive.

"Then let me go!"

"To hide somewhere? It's not safer out there than on Wolfpack Island, or do you think I'll harm you again?"

She jerked at her tail once and refused to face him.

"Miss Filia? I can't let you go, it's orders. My liege needs fusion magic, and I have to figure out a way to get that. At the least, doesn't to assure you I won't cause more harm?"

"Just ... I know you don't mean physical harm, but you'll hurt me in different ways," she whispered, like she didn't even speak to him. "You just need me alive, whatever  _that_  may entail. What are you going to try to make me cooperate? Mind games? They worked for Valgarv, though I don't think you'd be good at it."

How much of that spite and loathing was directed at him, and how much enforced by Valgarv's actions? Maybe it blurred.

"It's not really my style, miss Filia. But my liege might just do it. Wouldn't it be better if we work out something between us?"

"Here's me, wanting you to leave. There's you, talking about what malice your lord would engage in. That makes it easier for me to figure us out as the enemies we are."

"Oh come now. We've always been enemies, just not mortal ones. Not even worst ones. I dare say, you're my best enemy," he said, smiling and with a finger.

That was supposed to break the mood, but it inspired a sharp resentment in her. She tore her tail out of his grip, but since she didn't make a move to teleport, he let it be.

"Yes, I am. I must be  _entertaining_  to the cult of fun. I'm fun and useful, that's the highest commodity in your temple, isn't it?" she sneered. "By heaven and hell, Xelloss, don't you get it? You were part of our family! It made no sense, but you were there and you did keep us safe. Sometimes I even liked our games ... sometimes I believed you were closer to life than any other astral creature."

"How hopelessly corny and delusional. You knew all all along who I am."

She narrowed her eyes, he couldn't tell whether in anger, to fight back tears, or from cringing.

"What I know ... no, I didn't know you. If I'd known even a little of your power and your nature, I wouldn't have been fooled back in the temple of the ancient dragons. You never  _needed_  to fight the Elder, it was all a trick. It's so easy for you to fool people just by holding back things, just like you do now. I can't even tell for how far you are involved in the mess now. I was wrong about Val, I was wrong about miss Luna, I was wrong about the holy order, I was wrong you, I was wrong about Valgarv. I can't do that anymore. I can't play anymore, Xelloss."

"Ehm ... "

Xelloss wasn't exactly at a loss for words. Oh no, he had plenty of biting things to say, but they'd probably be wrong. Whatever he said, she would just think he left away something.

It was a bizarre age that he found himself in, taking Amelia's advice.

"I'm sorry."

Filia snorted. "For what exactly? Why? Are you sorry that you lost useful magic? Or for yourself that you nearly died as a result? Tell me, did you need this scar for some grand plot too?"

She held up one of her claws, showing the odd angle at which her thumb was stuck. Her tail swung behind her, not as flexible as it had once been. He hadn't really taken into account how she'd heal without magic to heal with.

"I guess I got a little carried away," he said, shrugging and with an embarrassed smile. "But the ensuing thrill I got meant nobody asked me inconvenient questions!"

That ticked her off so much, she almost felt like normal.

"There's your problem. You can get carried away and then you just shrug like oops, no big deal."

"Why is that a problem? You go  _oops, no big deal_  on Valgarv all the time. I've been there both times, when you sympathized with Valgarv despite the death he dished out right then. I think you're having a double standard."

"Not anymore. I only have one standard now and you don't meet it. If you did, you would have answered my question."

She teleported away again. It was a small jump, so he shifted after her at ease.

Too bad that he didn't see the big jump coming, as it came so close on its tail. Quite the risk she took there.

Filia shot across the continent, he just barely caught her flow.

The connection was so weak he had to push his last reserve of holy magic to complete it. When he arrived, she was nowhere around; he had fallen astray in the sky.

Still, she had to be near, for this was a familiar sight. He had traveled these mountains to the sacred valley of the ancient dragons. Retracing his path, he found the valley quickly enough.

In a cold evening sun lay a ring of mountains lay around vast green fields. Central to the valley lay a few lakes, connection with rivers that circled despite gravity. Clusters of distorted marine-green trees stood everywhere : near the lake, the forest, and cover the ruins of cathedrals.

Three years ago, Lina Inverse had come here with the third host of Shabranigdu. It had been Zelas's plan: she wanted to see whether Lina was truly favored by the Lord of Nightmares.

The ruse involved testing whether Pokota's artificial light weapons could be used to replicate the chaos spell that destroyed Dark Star. Zelas had known all along that would fail. In the end, Lina would be forced to cast the Giga Slave, though she had her own precautions in place. The hell trees, which had kept the soul of the host here so that Shabranigdu could not escape to hell, trapped in an incomplete awakening.

The flames on the trees were gone now, but back then they had flared with Megiddo's power. Even now, the trees was impossible to see through on any plane. It wouldn't be easy to find Filia here, he couldn't move in any straight lines.

He began combing the forest, occasionally projecting as a wolf. He caught her scent a few times, but she never stayed in the same place.

Sometimes he saw her glow in the distance. She didn't appear to leave but she had no rest; had she realized he was around? No, not likely. She didn't seem frantic anymore, rather, she  _explored_. Some spots she revisited, especially the hillside where once a cathedral had stood.

Maybe she sought for traces of Valgarv's activity. Back then, they had taken along little Val to activate the magic of the ancient dragons. Anchored in these mountains was a latent shield, which they had used to contain Shabranigdu in case of emergency. If that magic had been influenced by Valgarv he could imagine her curiosity, but not her point in investigating here and now. Maybe something had happened after he lost sight of her and Luna.

He didn't know that. Whatever went on in her head was a secret to him. He couldn't even tell what exactly she needed an apology for.

This lack of understanding was a harsh truth for an astral being. He could understand  _what_  other people did, learn from observation, but never truly grasp why someone thought or felt the way they did. Imagining to be another person was denial of the self. Everything he predicted was an educated guess, fueled by a thousand years of observation. People like Lina and Filia, who did not fit the mold, could easily blindside him.

He supposed he could threaten the people she loved, get her to talk that way. If anything, she was convinced now he'd go through with it. If that failed, he could take her to his liege and have her pry out knowledge and cooperation.

Ugh, no. That went contrary to the way he did things. Respect was to be paid to those that deserved it, and debts to those that aided him.

He wanted to actually fix this. Never mind how frustrating, disrespectful and obnoxiously uncivil she was ... he _liked_ those things on her. She clustered together so many of the world's little concepts into an absurd reality. She had to  _be that_  way, not the solemn suffering mess Valgarv and her golden kin left her as. He just had to figure out how she ticked.

Organic life had the benefit of imagining themselves as others. To astral beings, this perspective itself was lethal, but then again, he had survived other lethal things. Teleportation couldn't be in the arsenal of anyone else, he could resist Leyunso's curse, he could channel Shabranigdu without dissolving.

Okay, so all three of those hurt in one way or another. A lot. Still, he survived them.

It was worth a shot, and the time — Filia didn't appear to be leaving soon.

Xelloss sought out an isolated spot up the mountain, not quite a cave but a cavity. Here had could look across the valley without being seen, just in case Filia went for a big jump; those created a wider glow than small jumps. Also, she wouldn't come across him here. Probably.

He sat down crosslegged and got out some tea to think.

Where to start getting into someone's head? He had no instincts or neurological patterns for that. Didn't help what that Filia was quite the mess of pride and self-loathing, religious zeal and blasphemous intention, deep grief and trivial joy, deep fried with dogmatic mindset and exaltation (whatever that was, scholars never agreed). All of those things were connected with strings he couldn't see, subtle influence and memories summoned not from relevance, but emotional imprinting.

Well, he didn't need to understand all that. Just enough to figure out how to get her to talk and listen.

Maybe parallels would work, starting with himself.

Filia was raised to serve idols and gods, he knew that much. Something like that existed for Xelloss too, albeit the Lord of Nightmares had no laws she instilled on others and required no faith. Between these, a concept of meaning and purpose was shared. Xelloss had chaos to thrive on and live by, Filia had ... gods? Elders? Religion?

No, probably not. She prayed to gods, but lived with people. She also wanted things, like a higher purpose, vases, a stable economy, for people to stop discriminating against beast folk, and a slew of other things. Her family was in the middle of that. A lot of that revolves around Val because of guilt, but at the bottom it was all of them. Life, safety, the ability to protect them. He'd known that, but hadn't really seen a link to purpose before. Ah, good, he was getting somewhere. It might even fit with how he had an absolute, firm place as servant and priest of Zelas Metaliom.

Now take away all purpose.

What if he lived in a world without a lord to serve and chaos to live by? Well, that wasn't going to happen, yes but what if it was all an illusion and he'd wake up to find himself hooked to a lotus machine?

Nothing. He'd have his surface interests, but it'd be like so much of him was gone. It made no sense, but sense and reality aside, what if ...

He wasn't really  _imagining_  it, this was reasoning. Hmm.

Irritated, he tapped his fingers on the teacup and stared down at the liquid. He should be able to really imagine, right? Organic creatures did it all the time, they even did it unintentionally, processing things through dreams. While on Wolfpack Island, Luna and Filia had had a dreamhopping fest, for as far as he could tell from the presence of life law circles.

Idly, he scorched a replica of Filia's law law circle into the rocks before him. He wanted to understand, he had a framework to understand in.

_Now take away all purpose._

The circle reflected in the teacup, despite not being above it. Odd.

Turning the cup a little, the ripples changed and Filia looked back.

_"What do you and Zelas want?"_

He thought she left away the question whether they'd hurt her. How ridiculous — of course they would.

Now it echoed across the mountain, and he really listened ... she asked what wanted. Not how they would get what they wanted. Not the consequences. Not her fate.

Xelloss never had much trouble getting into what people wanted, and often once he knew the method, he knew the purpose. Fibrizo hadn't even needed much guessing : all devils want to end the world.

Lina Inverse tapped him on the shoulder, squatted at his side. Ha! Helpless pawn of Fibrizo, yet chosen by the Lord of Nightmares. Lina had broken that day, and came back on no strength of her own, yet she had pulled Filia back to her senses.

"You're making her lay down and die," Lina said.

_Now take away all purpose._

He had hated serving Fibrizo, but was willing to see out whatever Her purpose for the world was. She had to—

_Now take away all purpose._

"What if you had to destroy the Lord of Nightmares?" Lina asked.

He laughed. "That's absurd, miss Lina."

Absurd. Nothing like this wouldn't happen happen — could not happen — tag, you're it.

Wait a second.

"How are you here?"

Lina grinned. "No purpose, no useful purpose at least. I just wanted to save Gourry. But we have to live in this world, so let's not die in vain."

"You're not making any sense, miss Lina," Xelloss said, and he poured the tea out into the sky.

The earth turned upside down and Lina fell into the stars right before the tea the tea turned it into dark blue water. The sea fell together with the mountains, forming gray rock and canals below a statue.

A crude resemblance of Ragradia, deep in the mountains of Kataart where Xelloss and Filia had forged fusion vessels. Now, all the vessels lay in pieces around them.

"Xelloss, doesn't it bother you to be pushed around by a stronger being?" Filia asked. The voice came from his own mouth.

And then he turned, and saw himself through her eyes.

It was him, he knew, and the reflection of Filia was in his eyes, but the one he saw was Fibrizo.

The water became the sea, and he stood on the shore of Wolfpack Island as Fibrizo, demanding to see Zelas. He chattered on Seigram defecting to Garv, and oh my, what did that say about Zelas?

He demanded the beast priest as a servant. The implication was such that she had to prove she meant to support the world's end, for her servants were displayed suspicious behavior! Seigram, a pure devil, joining the infamous traitor Garv! Oh the shame.

So Zelas told him to obey the Hellmaster.

He had no idea what Fibrizo was after, back then. He had to figure it out on his own and be careful, because if Fibrizo knew the truth he'd kill him and Zelas. Yet if he succeeded, the world would end.

Filia had no idea what the Wolf Pack was after, right now. They had refused to tell her, because ... why? Luna wasn't allowed to know something?

Fibrizo hadn't trusted Xelloss with the truth.

Zelas hadn't trusted Luna and Filia with the truth.

_You're my thing. My tool. Don't be too diverse a person, we'll discard you if you aren't what we need._

Devils had no choice, should be this one thing, never be a person. Dragons, or at least Filia, turned out to be a person. A person who uses the fire dragon king, but she asks.

When he looked at his reflection in teacup again, a blend of Fibrizo's cunning and Shabranigdu's relentless power looked back.

None of this should fit into a teacup, none of this was him, but he couldn't stop being Fibrizo Shabranigdu.

_Now take away all purpose._

He wanted to get out, he needed purpose. He had a place in the Wolfpack and in the fate of the world; what the Lord of Nightmares decreed and what the Beast Monarch commanded, he had to be loyal to.

Beyond that, he wanted to live.

A tiny Filia walked up the mountain, and because he was Shabranigdu, because he was Fibrizo, he had to kill her. Dragons meant to save the world.

But he was also Xelloss, and Filia was part of the pack.

How low he'd fallen, Shabranigdu thought of Xelloss, and Fibrizo already planned to use this weakness.

_I want purpose._

"You're a traitor!" the emulation of his enemies howled, and here he found the divide between. He could not betray those he had never been loyal to.

He cast them out, but it left him alone in a dark hollow, mountains gone, and only a light remaining as a ring on the far away horizon. Black above, dim dark gold below.

Filia's astral form still approached. She was real.

So was Xelloss.

He wasn't Filia or Fibrizo. Filia didn't actually consider him Fibrizo, and if they had been the same, the end would be different. All this was just a rational choice he had made, he needed an answer to a question. He didn't need to be someone else. Xelloss existed, here, now. Just him. The world existed around him, the astral plane — Her Mind — and the physical plane — whatever that might be — he had to be.

He felt the world again. Just pinpoints, here and there. The rocks on the mountain, the wind all over ...

"I'm here," he whispered, but the sound came out as a wordless screech. He'd sounded like this in his first moments of existence, before he understood air vibration.

Terror set in, had he died and remade himself?

... no, perhaps not. He remembered (probably) and the difficulty with speech wasn't lack of knowledge or fresh form.

Rather, his entire astral body had been thinned and scattered out. Rather than a human projection, he displayed a distorted mess that covered a few hundred meters of the mountain. Several formations resembled Fibrizo's dark light, and a malformed replica of Ragradia's statue stood near the spot where he'd sat down before. Torn ribbon lay here and there. Most of everything further away was black cones on their point covering fields, or chaotic clusters of needles. Here and there burned blue fire.

The contents of his subspace lay scattered all over the slopes Scattered popcorn, candy, teacups, money and other trivial mortals items were the only reminder that Xelloss was more than just an eldritch thing.

 _Don't think yourself to death_ , the Beast Monarch had said a few days after his creation. It had been a jest on her behalf, and the first time he made her grin.

Well then. Fantasy. Definitely an interesting experience. He wasn't sure he quite had empathy down, but it had been insightful. And more suicidal than he'd grasped. This was going to be very hard to break to the Beast Monarch, who wasn't keen on him doing impulsive things.

His astral form seemed to be whole, but rather smeared out. It was difficult to move as one, yet somehow he could see further across the astral plane than normal.

He'd been right, the real Filia approached. In her dragon form, she circled close to the edge of his field of cones.

He still didn't yet know what to say, but a memory of the fusion vessel mission lay fresh in his mind.

_"Xelloss, doesn't it bother you to be pushed around by a stronger being?"_

So that ... oh. Oops.

Filia had already tried relating to him and getting him to relate to her. It had flown right over his head.

For Xelloss it was a casual fact he outpowered most creatures in the world. The sky was blue on unclouded days, healthy grass was generally green, wheat could be used as food, he could kill hundreds of people with only a pointed finger and sugar was sweet. If Shabranigdu was released he might be in problems, but demon kings tended to be dense as a brick, so he could handle that with the right tools. Even Fibrizo he had pushed a little to his demise. It kinda needed Lina Inverse to be around, though.

Filia meanwhile had no say in anything. Her only power lay in unique magic, while everyone else made her choices for her. Now Filia wanted to do something, but it wasn't her call, and there was no Lina Inverse to change things.

If he wanted Filia to talk after all this, he had to hand over something first.

That and be more presentable than a field of madly spinning cones. He pulled himself together and managed to reduce his surface to only a few hundred meters. With density, his senses sharpened. At his core, he formed a half circle of many upside down cones and needles, shallow still. He felt more like glassy darkness than solid curse. Setting fire at his core, he became something like a magical echo chamber, a trick Zelas had taught him. She herself had a skill to lower her density, making herself harder to detect, so she needed a method to stabilize. It might just work for him.

"What's wrong with you?"

That was the first worthwhile sound his senses delivered.

Filia stood at the edge of his chaotic projection, wings wide and energy alight. She'd teleport away at first sign of trouble.

He tried talking, but only got out more inhuman sounds.

Filia backed off, but didn't leave yet. He caught wisps of concern in her emotions.

"This better not be a trick," she muttered.

Cautious, she poked her snout against one of the outer cones. It wobbled a little, then returned to upright position.

He hoped to see a little of the old Filia, who might have tried bowling over the swarm, but no.

"Is this what happens when you teleport across a distance too long?" she asked.

He wanted to shake his head, but in lacked a head this impulse resulted in the cones tipping over to Filia. She took another few steps back.

In lieu of his regular voice, he forced out sound by manipulating the air in the half-circle. He just barely got out a "Stay."

Now she looked at the fire, but he couldn't look back.

"I'll tell you a secret."

It echoed five times over, mixed because of inexperience with this way of speech. To his preferred imago of the mysterious priest, it was a disgrace. Yet that only mattered to him, because on Filia had an effect.

Suspicious but also a little hopeful, she asked, "What good will this secret do me?"

"It'll help you see where you stand in the grand game."

"And if I don't reach the right conclusion at the end of it?"

"I am under orders to find out why our fusion failed and to restore whatever it is that made it fail. I cannot disobey, but I can try to carry it out with respect to you. That's what I myself want to do."

"I'm listening."

He braced himself, yet it also pleased him to talk. He was curious what she would say at the end of it.

"The true name of the Lord of Nightmares is  _Lucifer_."

All of his projection flickered with the mention of Her Name, but he kept together. If anything, it helped him anchor in the here and now.

"When I went to retrieve Gorun Nova for mister Gourry, I came to the edge of the Sea of Chaos. There I met the Lord of Nightmares and asked her why she created us to desire absolute destruction for the world, yet spared the world when she had a chance to reabsorb it.

She gave me no answer, only pointed out that Siephied was created with equal power. She told me that if I wanted change, I myself could have it. Fibrizo wanted destruction for the entire world and only received it himself. Miss Lina wanted to save Gourry and this She provided, which happened to mean the world saved along the way. Mister Gourry wanted miss Lina back, and she was returned. I wanted change for the devils so I could live in this world without always minding them and so she removed only my instinct.

The interesting thing about that, miss Filia, was that it just meant I don't itch anymore. I have some benefits in that my identity is less breakable, so I can use tools and even holy magic without a fatal ego blow. However, it made absolutely no difference about  _who_ I am as a person, because I'd been ignoring that drive anyway.

I was given Gorun Nova back by the Lord of Nightmares without specific orders, and I returned it to its owner. You know the rest of that history.

The Lord of Nightmares is capricious, the devils are wrong to believe they are Her definite will. Between god, devil and mortal, we are the ever growing diversity of Her dream. The primordial Igdu and Phied only pretended at being persons, for in the first place they are force of ancient thought. Instincts of the matter that this world was made of. As time passes, the world changes, and through interaction with the world, so can the astral beings.

The Wolfpack believes that Her desire to return to the days of yore are true, but minds are more than just desire. She has a  _personality_  as much as we do. If the gods and devils are in balance, that means Her desire to let the worlds exist is just as strong as Her desire to destroy it was ...  _at the time the worlds_  were created, and no more.

Devils as created by Shabranigdu were not meant to love existence, but concepts in and of themselves do not really  _exist_  even if they are a blue print for things to be. Thoughts are insubstantial, patterns and rhythms to a theory. The mind transcends the tangible world and its complexities, for in all Her destructive void the Lord of Nightmares  _remembers_  and  _desires_  and  _dreams_. There will never be a world without concepts and feelings because S _he_  will never be undone.

We change to be like Her, or She changes, we do not know and are forbidden to ask, but I am certain She now favors existence. Knowing this, being what I am, I serve the Lord of Nightmares at Her most capricious. If this world set me up to change as I have, then I am a manifestation of Her desires too."

She stayed silent for a while, and he got no wiser from what she felt.

"You don't have the itch to destroy the world, but only Zelas and now I know this. You're capable of genuinely liking things to an extent devils should not; Lyos mentioned having remotely eaten some things you weren't supposed to feel in Kataart."

Wait, what?

"When did he mention that?" he said, and his prickliness showed by the outer rings of cones digging into the earth.

"When you were paying attention to something else. Anyway, Dalphin doesn't know you are defective."

"I am not defective! Didn't you listen to anything I've just said?" he snapped. Or rather, he tried to snap. In this distorted form, the effect came out by wild clattering.

Filia flinched and teleported away, reappearing a hundred meters away from his edge.

Oi, this would be tricky. He needed his focus back and get his human form out.

He stayed put. After Filia calmed her breathing down, she walked back.

"I don't see how that is relevant," he said, softer now. Really, he had just revealed great things about the nature of reality and the order of the world. He'd hoped that'd get a response like,  _Oh now I see what you're after and why, this doesn't sound like you're gonna instill any oppressive regimes that keep people from changing._

Instead, Filia got caught up on such trivialities? At risk of it being the wrong thing again, he added, "This is a matter of fate, surely you did not lose your penchant for dramatic prophecy?"

That got a sneer out of her. "Prophecies are only constructs by those with enough power to conceal the mechanism. Can you see the mechanism of Her Will?"

"I can see some of it by my own eyes, and some by my liege's tales. Do you want to hear?"

She nodded.

"My most recent evidence for the will of the Lord of Nightmares is Siephied themself. Or rather, herself. The moment Siephied split power and descended into the Sea of Chaos, the Sea spat hir right back, confining hir to the soul of a human. Now she calls herself Leyunso, and is believed to be a Sage like miss Liliane.

She can die, but she passes through Megiddo with her identity intact and thus lives forever. The Bringer of Light condemned her so that no claim she made would be believed, lest it was something the hearer already believed.

Everything of what I've told you about our belief, for a long time it was only speculation in the mind of my liege. In the five thousand years she has on me, I do not know when her first rebellious thought was, but I know this : she met miss Leyunso and they spoke. Together, they sealed the first awakened piece of Shabranigdu.

Siephied pushed the Beast Monarch over the edge she already balanced on. The Beast Monarch cannot even realize the significance of this, because she cannot know who miss Leyunso really is. I can, I am immune to the curse.

That Siephied had been returned confirms what my liege hoped to learn from miss Lina : whether the Lord of Nightmares has a bias in favor of existence. We may have become creatures who want to exist, but we will not defy our Mother. We won't need to, so it turns out.

It wasn't merely a whim when the Lord of Nightmares spared the world when miss Lina did not control the Giga Slave. She Herself planned this all along. She will allow us to exist and we'll change the world for that sake.

Valgarv and Volphied are the true rebels, because they seek to undo all the sum of this world's change and progress. They want to replace it with their own view, thereby supplanting the will of the Lord of Nightmares. In that much, he is both of our enemy, and don't either of us seek to preserve the world as it is?

I can't promise a world without suffering, should the Wolfpack come out dominant, but I don't think the Beast Monarch is interesting in being a tyrant. That would only stifle the world, because tyranny is enforced order."

"You speak of heresy to chaos, then what you live by is faith," Filia whispered. "It's going to hurt when it breaks."

And still not the response he'd hoped for. Wasn't Filia looking for some sort of higher purpose? Maybe he'd been wrong about that ...

Filia felt sorrow now, like nothing he'd said held any meaning to her. It frustrated him to no end, because how could anyone hear that existence had a meaning and just regret?

"Your supreme god lives and you ignore it?"

"Gods are only clusters of power with a base instinct, you said so yourself. Hardly even people. I've met miss Leyunso. She is more than that, but also just a human. Faith is something that the gods feed on, that the only value it has in this world. At least for us organic creatures. How did you come to be someone who can have faith at all? Were you made like that?"

That was a secret he hadn't even known he kept, because he hadn't thought about it before.

"To an extent, I think. We astral beings multiply through budding, which involves cutting off a piece of power while imagining another person to be that, and planting those ideas. However, most of this is a barren mind that fills in over time. The results can be quite fascinating, like the blind spots. One can have a reasonably cunning devil like Scherrer who nevertheless fails to notice her own name is a copy of her lord's. Dynast doesn't really understand intelligence.

I'm not sure what my liege tried to instill on me, but she appears satisfied for the most part. Though she is a little disappointing at me not being very inconspicuous."

"Not very? You're not even scraping by, you're a miserable failure."

Oh, thank Chaos, she was finally insulting him.

"I suppose that's true. It's certainly where I started filling my blank. Rich people start to raise eyebrows when the traveling priest they're sheltering in hopes of certain blessing keep forgetting to eat for five days straight. I went from there, encouraged by my liege. She herself developed a taste for food too. From there I moved to other things, like respect for attitude. Then deviation. Unpredictability. Uniqueness. Assertion. Striving. If any devil asks me, I say I appreciate things because it helps convince people to be at ease with me, lacking acting skills. They believe it, because to some extent all of them appreciate something.

The more we had to become individuals, the more we changed from the original dream. Many devils consider it growing further from Her, but they cannot stop it. All of us come to like concepts in our efforts to define a steady identity. Hylaker enjoyed gambling, and Rixfalt desired a combat challenge to the point she'd disobey her lord. Seigram valued his personal vengeance over the complete destruction that Fibrizo offered. These are just names you would have heard from Lina, but I could cite many more.

The Beast Monarch and I simply went further, and in my case the Lord of Nightmares herself approved. I hope one day, the Beast Monarch will experience the same favor. I think she may have tried to meet her, three years ago in this valley."

To him, this was elaboration to the question of what he wanted, and waited for her to fill in her side of things, but no.

"I bet you bleed from the face because your obnoxious attitude inspires people to bash in your skull so often that it kept ruining your human pretense."

Turned out Filia didn't need to physically hit anything to make him bowl over. The nearest row of cones wobbled flat down.

Chaos, this dragon. She got all dramatic and angst ridden on the turf of guilt and crime, but tell her an existential truth not in her dogma and she just shrugs it off?

It took effort to remind himself what he knew of her; broken faith and little to live for. That matched her feelings, she teetered on the edge of emotional fatigue. How much was left of her old self?

"I've told you what we want, why and how. What about you?"

"You're very late with starting to care about that," she said.

"My apologies for that."

Filia took on her human form. Hunched forward as a dragon, the wound hadn't stood out. Now he saw the blood stains down her dress, he wondered what else he had missed. Either that cross had been something more physical, or Filia had become something more astral; one shouldn't bleed from pure astral attacks.

Cautious and riddled with the kind of fear provided by memory, she approached. He kept still.

She lightly tapped her fingers on the edge of the cone nearest to her. Only the edge; he did not feel her fingers on the top surface.

... there was no top surface; he was hollow.

Filia held out a small sphere of light above it.

"You can do magic like this, right? Prove we have the same goal," she said. "If we do, we will be able to blend our magic."

"Fusion magic as a lie detector? Interesting."

"An intention detector. My goal is to save the world, the people in it, and to leave life in a state better than it is now. No reformations, no coercion, no changes of mind or body forced on anyone. We will destroy Shabranigdu and the gods if it needs to be, and then you'll let people be free."

It'd be easy to comply with that just from his own angle, but he couldn't leave out things anymore. That much he understood.

"Well, the Beast Monarch hasn't yet told me all the details yet. I'm not sure whether I can be true to the last."

She made a sound between a huff and fearful frustration, the latter because of what she said next, "Fine. In that case, I'll ask Zelas myself. I'll hear all of it, and only then I will see whether I will trust you."

"That sounds good enough for my orders," he said.

**· · · · · · ·**

Filia could teleport them near to the shore of the continent, though Xelloss thought it cost her a lot of power. She couldn't go to Wolfpack Island without Claire helping with directions, or rather, she did not want to risk Claire stopping them. Xelloss warped space a bit to bring them the rest of the way.

They arrived to chaos (the modern definition of the word). Scorch marks littered the beach and beyond the outer ring of hills, the forest burned. Occassionally, a chunk of land was throw up.

Arinkiau met him in mid-air, right as he slowed down.

"Beast priest, where have you been so long?"

Xelloss unwhirled his mass and revealed Filia, who sat atop a cluster of cones.

"I had a mission to carry out and I succeeded," he said. "What happened while I was gone? It's been very long since I've seen her this angry."

"The god pieces are gone," Arinkiau blurted out.

And Filia wasn't surprised or worried at all.

"Did you know, miss Filia?" he asked.

"Miss Orun is an excellent flow dancer, and the rocks on the beach weren't particularly polluted by devil magic to begin with," she said. "You better not start complaining that I kept this a secret. Hiding someone's escape plan from their captors is a very different thing than manipulating innocent people," she said. Her voice riddled with enough spite to hide that she was still afraid.

By now he outright hated that.

"Well—"

"What?"

"I wouldn't call miss Luna innocent. Anyway, miss Arinkiau, please go ahead and tell our liege that I have returned with miss Filia, but that I am a little unstable and would appreciate it if she would not be violent around us."

Especially not since Filia apparently couldn't be near him without remembering the wrong things.

He waited with Filia at a distance from the island. Eventually, Filia asked, "Do you like serving her?"

"Naturally, she is worth serving."

"What if she made you to think like that?"

That was an angle he did not want to explore. It would be pointless. He had plenty of other evidence he was handling existence the right way. This was just Filia's paranoia talking, and really, that made sense. Val turned out to be fake, among other things.

"This really isn't on topic, miss Filia. We're about to talk to my liege, who seems to be in a very bad mood. It'd be good if you would not call her any names, especially not  _slimy hairball_ , and stay close to me in case she feels like shooting a wall down."

"Alright," she said.

Arinkiau returned after about a quarter of an hour.

"So sorry it took a while, it was hard getting close without being burned I had to find a few who knew how to project themselves as letters for a far off signal. She expects you in the nearest mansion, beast priest."

Now on this side of the island, it turned out the damage wasn't too bad. Zelas kept her venting restricted to a single slope. The mansion had been more or less spared from the inferno, despite its proximity.

Xelloss swarmed into the throne room, which Zelas used whenever she invited mortals for some scheme or another. There was a ring of chairs before a throne, and no table for people to put anything on. The place had been subtly designed to unsettle its visitors, providing little shelter. Not the best meeting place, but he suspected Zelas would arrive here.

He was correct.

When Zelas projected in, she towered in full angelic wolf form up to the ceiling. She took one quick look at Filia, then demanded of Xelloss, "Why are you in pieces?"

"I seem to have wandered onto an unusual layer of the astral plane. Please don't worry, I'm finding my way off already. I used to be spread over kilometers."

"Indeed. Is this related to why your fusion failed?"

"In a way, but—"

Filia hopped off her seat. "I'll tell you. Our goals did not coincide : you want to use me, I want to be free. I can't trust you like this," Filia said, her voice relatively even. She feared Zelas less outright than Xelloss; so her response was likely not rooted in mentally warning herself, but instinctive imprinting.

Zelas cast him that quiet furious look he knew only had one meaning : you messed up something again, didn't you? He wasn't sure what, though.

Maybe she'd take a more drastic approach, so he quickly said, "Miss Filia and I did manage to reach an agreement."

"And what would this agreement be?" Zelas snarled.

"I want to know everything you planned, the why, how, when and where. He needs to know as well," Filia said, looking Zelas right in the eye. "If you're worried gods will get in my mind, then you need a grip of how soul windows work. Miss Luna and I can cut off and claim whatever energy a god sends at us, so in the off chance Rangort learns the wrong thing — assuming the wrong thing exists — we can more than handle it."

"Everything else about my plan already lies in shambles and you want me to let a loose canon like you in on the plot?"

"Miss Luna already is on her way to mess up your plot. She wants to stop mister Lyos from sacrificing himself, and frankly, unless you can give me a full picture of everything, I agree with her. If you can convince me otherwise, I can use my clairvoyance to reach her. Or do you have an idea where she is?"

Zelas narrowed her eyes, mighty irritated, but she kept herself in check. Taking on her travel form, she shrunk to the throne. Well, shrunk ... even in this form, her air dominated.

Filia had enough defiance in her to take the chair opposite of her and cross her arms.

"What has Xelloss told you so far?" Zelas asked.

"That you believe the Lord of Nightmares wishes for the world to exist and that your plan is in favor of this. I want to know how that fits onto what Valgarv claimed about the sacrifice of the gods and miss Luna."

"The gods will be sacrificed in the context of returning them to the Phied form, as they wish, but would never trust miss Lina with. The Aqualord is the exception to this, as she understands miss Lina is the Apostle of Chaos.

Miss Claire would take in the power of the other gods, but we do not need the part of Siephied held by Luna Inverse. The purpose of having a singular whole god is the ability to perceive all around the world and track down every last astral being. Only those linked to the flow can do this. In addition, it clears out three stubborn, useless gods who would only get in the way otherwise. Furthermore, a unified god would be able to contain the pieces of Shabranigdu should anything go wrong.

So yes, we built a machine that summons them and yes, a misfire caused a rift in their flow now. However, understand we did not control the machine when the misfire happened. The power of the Knight of Siephied is trivial, as we are after omniscience and a lack of enemies. Miss Lina and I agree very much that a mind such as Luna Inverse should be kept away from any god that miss Lina creates. That we needed her for the angelsblood talisman is already an issue enough.

Miss Lina went to the other universes to create new talismans out of the other deities, and in her words, to explore and gather riches. By the time we had her back, my intent was to have the Aqualord sustainable on her power and Har Megiddo well protected against devils. Hence the powered up Sailoon army, whom can be expected to be loyal to miss Lina thanks to miss Amelia.

Once miss Lina had returned, she would take the souls of the gods through fusion magic. From that, she would bind all devils in the world to souls we were to create. Mortal souls. Preferably some that can feed on more than negativity. I suppose we could kill them all, but that would remove a great deal of power from the world, which does not seem wise : there are others who may invade our world. We must keep both holy and curse magic in existence.

There were three rivaling opinions on the outcome; I wish to own the power of Shabranigdu, the Aqualord once wished for everything to return to slumber and seal the power of Shabranigdu, and miss Lina ... I do not know her exact goal. She did not like either of those ideas. We would go as far as the reformation of the world, after that we would see who came out on top."

Xelloss twitched despite himself. He had expected something that involved defeating Shabranigdu and the gods, not something so drastic as remaking the entire structure of the astral species. This was less of a battle and more of a forced reformation ... not natural change per say. Was this acceptable in the rhythm of chaos.

"What bothers you, Xelloss?" Zelas asked. "Speak freely."

"You'd force a change to the way the world was created, my liege? The other devils did not undergo a change, we would be taking their fate in our hands."

"I do not like it, Xelloss, but they are going to kill us. Even if they never find out, they will end the world and we will die," she said, sharp and vicious. "Ideally, we would change food restrictions so any devil can evolve more freely."

"Never mind that," Filia said. "What went wrong with your plan?"

"You know most of it. When a war threatened to break out around Kataart, thus endangering the unstable Claire Bible and its fragile godly soul, we sped up our plan. While you two were in Kataart, I worked on a way to get you in touch with Lezo Greywords. Had Val not snapped, within a month mister Lezo Greywords would have contacted you to teach you how to make a soul jar. This part was hypothetical, but worth the attempt. In retrospect, for the past seven years Volphied hatched a scheme that used us, so there are elements we must question."

Filia glared at Zelas when she said  _used us_.

"So what use did you have of destroying mister Laust?"

"An unfortunate need. He was meant to control the power of Shabranigdu and agreed with miss Lina, or so it seemed. Alas, he was destroyed to cover up the extra ray from the pillar. I would not have liked it if Deep Sea Dalphin were to find the piece of Shabranigdu that I sealed in the south. It knows I am a traitor."

"How convenient, because now miss Lina has to assign the power  _to you_."

"Watch your tongue, dragon. I may be a schemer, but I seek to keep my promises when possible. You are in no position to speculate on how my nature to my word is."

"No, I'm not watching my tongue, I'm watching my fate. You wanted mister Lezo to teach me something? You and Rangort had  _weeks_ to teach me and miss Luna to ensure Valwin and Vrabazard could not get into our minds. If you can do magic that transmigrates a soul that powerful without anyone around noticing, you must know what soul magic can do. There's no excuse, you should have tried!"

"The past cannot be undone, we will mind it in the future," Zelas said, her face averted from Filia. She tried not to lash out, again.

"Mind it how? So you'll use in a way we can't mess up?"

"Your problems seem to be where the power lies. Well then, consider this, little dragon : fusion fails if you do not agree with the goal. This disagreement can be as simple as not wanting to be a pawn. Fusion is needed before any new souls are crafted. Should you disagree with what we do, such as sacrificing miss Luna, you only need to not want it and it will not happen."

With that, Zelas stood up. She marched out, rather than phase away; meant to show her disdain. Just as she passed the door, she curled her finger at Xelloss. He was to follow.

They went to another isolated room, where Zelas turned into her aristocrat form and pulled a bottle of wine from the walls. After emptying it and muttering about insolent dragons, she unfolded her wings. Using these she gathered around all of Xelloss's scattered pieces.

Using the dexterity of human hands, she invoked the flow around him. Devils didn't have a worldly flow of their own, but something of an internal balance nonetheless. He had never paid much attention to this, but to his surprise Zelas knew exactly what she was doing. Something about the way she moved was almost mortal.

He wanted to understand her too."

"What exactly did you do, Xelloss? You are like a hollowed out shell, but your power is still here. Did the attack of Valgarv cause this?"

"Maybe it contributed, but not likely. See, I kind of hit a wall with miss Filia, so I tried to imagine how she thought. It seems to have worked, though I'm not sure how."

She paused in surprise. "You imagined being another. Yet you still exist."

"I do, my liege."

"You may have wandered into the astral plane where dreams take place. Only that could explain it." She ran a hand through the loose side of her hair, pulling it back. "There is so much I cannot predict. Not even how or what you are, my own creation."

Xelloss's hind mind offered a parallel again : between Zelas and Filia.

"What will ..." She trailed off, and didn't say another word while she finished pulling him back in place.

Now, Xelloss itched to ask whether he had been created differently. In retrospect, a few things Filia had said and incited came together with things Zelas  _didn't_  say. He was left with similar questions about either, but one great difference : where Filia demanded the same share, Xelloss was just a servant to Zelas by nature.

When the last piece of power fully reconnected, she withdrew her wings and restored her air to cool indifference.

He pushed his human form back into the world, pleased with the return of the more substantial senses he'd grown accustomed to. Sight, sound, feeling and balance had their full force again, and taste likely too, but this would be a bad time to indulge in food.

"How will we proceed, my liege?"

"Now that we know Volphied was behind this, there is no saying what the real purpose of Har Megiddo is. Perhaps it is impossible and I am looking at faulty evidence," Zelas said. "Never the less, I cannot go back. It is open war now that Luna has given Valgarv an excuse to sic an army past my island. It will be so easy for them to pass and notice my court has been reordered, because they will try to recruit me.

We have no idea where Claire is. No doubt she and Rangort will seize control of Har Megiddo. If they can persuade Luna to aid them, they have a quick way to grow a new talisman. If not, it will take longer, but they will. Rangort can get them a sliver of the world wall easily. I can assume that if Sailoon is on Claire's side, they will have changed the meeting plans as well. I will send out scouts to find out what we can. If that fails, we will meet them at the island. In either case, I must prepare an army."

She no longer called it Tel al-Metaliom, Xelloss noted. It made sense, but worried him too.

"You are certain we do not defy the will of the Lord of Nightmares? Do we truly know the Apostle of Chaos is a true concept?"

"Miss Lina will answer us one day."

"What if she does not return?"

"Then it is be our turn to lose our mind," Zelas said with a dry smile. "We better practice."

"I don't think I can manage that," Xelloss said, befuddled. "Honestly, my liege, I'm not even sure I can deal with miss Filia when she's broken."

"There are ways to handle traumatized people, for their better or worse, and our better," Zelas said. "I will take over if you cannot, but I would prefer you learn on your own. Though, keep low on methods that harm yourself."

**· · · · · · ·**

Zelas went on to organize her army, which he could not help with. She was the general on the pack as well as the leader, he had no experience leading.

The mansion's housekeeper brought Filia to a room and delivered some food. Filia ate, but it was too little, and she slept, but it was in short bursts. Every so now and then she woke up, wandered around and returned to uneasy sleep.

Like the throne room, this place was designed to unsettle. Just a little too large and hollow inside, and giving view right onto a hunting ground. The terrace had no railing separating one from the steep drop below, and the bench stood central to the indent, parallel with the walls. It suggested more of an altar room than a relaxing view spot. Zelas had sent them to this particular mansion because she expected guests.

Xelloss waited on the terrace, half standing guard in case any of the uninformed devils wandered by and decided to pry some food out of. Not that they'd need to do much. Xelloss got an astral stomach full of negative emotions, which poured out of her at all times. Once that had been just food, now he had an inkling of how it was to actually live with some of them. The kind of pressure and fear of standing right below something that might kill you, that he got. The rest not so much, but he'd known a few mortals that killed themselves over this.

Eventually, the terrace door opened and she looked out.

"Why are you here?" she asked.

"Well, this is Wolfpack Island, and I am the priest of said Wolfpack. Incidentally, I live here."

"I meant the terrace."

"Well, part security, and part, well, I don't think we're done talking, are we?"

Just by a little in her face, the light peeked through. "You're right, we're not."

She closed the door behind her, but stayed near the warmer walls.

Xelloss projected and sat down on the bench. They should just go inside, but something about the way she blocked the door denied that without a word. Probably some sort of irrational defensiveness.

He used to have some clothes in subspace, costumes for amusing scenarios, but nothing that fit her (or wasn't torn to shreds due to his earlier collapse). So he just took off his cloak and pulled a piece of raw cloth from his satchel — when he posed as human and went through a rough patch, he sometimes had to leave behind scraps of cloth. Mixing the two, he produced a replica of his cloak. The colors didn't match her though, so he inverted them.

"Let's start here. Don't worry, it's not my projection anymore," he said as he held it out.

She snatched it from his hand and inspected it thoroughly. Only then did she pull it around her shoulders. It fell around her, like her old cloak did.

Not a word, not a look. Was it going to stay like this from now on?

He needed an ice breaker.

"So, miss Filia, since you can see the astral plane now, how do you deal with the lack of clothes?"

No explosive embarrassment, no snapping, nothing. She looked up, almost sad, almost like saying it wasn't ever going to be like before.

"It was awkward until Claire and I developed a mental trick where I see clothes over everyone."

What a bland reply. He chuckled anyway at the information, if not delivery. "That's you, going out of your way to preserve modesty on a plane of existence where it does not and cannot exist."

"That's you, letting me think for seven years I had any modesty to be preserved." A cold tone, barely any irritation.

To his surprise she sat down next to him, but she faced the opposite side.

"I didn't manage to reach miss Luna so far. I may have a better chance when I'm off this damned island. Now, if we're going to work together, there are a few rules I have to give you."

"Maybe you should lay them down instead, they're less likely to drop that way."

"This isn't a joke!"

"Alright," he said, pleased to get a small response.

"One : stay out of my home unless I explicitly invite you, or you need to enter to help with a serious issue. When I tell you to get out,  _you get out_. Don't hover over my life."

"You don't have a home, do you?"

"Take it to mean any place where I live. I mean it, Xelloss. You need to stop stalking me."

"How else am I going to keep in touch with you?"

"I don't want to, but if we must, I have a crystal ball or you could just knock. Two : stop derailing me when I bring up a problem, like you did just now.

Three : don't set me up anymore, for as far as you can skim you lord's orders. This means anything from slamming doors in my face so my tension erupts, to playing with information so I'll walk into embarrassment or some other trap. No more coercion and manipulation at my expense."

"I'll comply to that, though this is starting to sound awfully boring."

"Good, because I'm not here for your entertainment. Four: my property is not your plaything. Don't break my vases, or set up others to break them. If I let you into my house, behave. I know you can."

He held up his hands. "Boundaries, I get it. I'm a little puzzled at your lack of rules on, say, mutilation."

"You just did it again."

"Did what?"

"Derail. You didn't say, _I agree_. You changed the topic. That's related to the fifth rule : you need to talk to me  _before_  things go wrong. It shouldn't require a crisis for you to even consider that maybe I need to know where we stand."

"Fine. I agree to hold those rules. On my word, and by the respect I owe you for certain things. Now I'd like to know where you stand on the scar topic you have been avoiding. Where are you left standing in regards to the Wolfpack?"

She fidgeted with the edge of the cloak. It took a while before she answered.

"It's not that you hurt me to cover up for it. It's that you never warned me when you could have. Gods, I really believe you'd kill me, like you've done to others.

If you had just told me up front that it might happen and how good you'd be at it, it would have been different now. I'd still be afraid at the right time, but you'd have known what to avoid so I don't end up with scars, and I'd have known I could still trust you. It wouldn't have cost you anything to explain me up front to what extent emotion-eaters can judge you.

And that just came on top of everything else. You've come into my house so often without an invitation, I've started treating it like only nuisance because what else can I do? You hold all the power, I can only adapt. I'm always cautious for the next thing you'll break, the next important meeting you'll ruin, and the bargains I have to make to fix things. I can rage and rant, but it achieves nothing. My anger and humiliation is only the punchline to your jokes.

You eat and you laugh, but I get to live with the aftermath. Ten thousand sand grains make a pile eventually."

"In a way I know that, I just didn't think that'd be a deciding factor in your case. I suppose I was wrong about you again. Where do I start being right?"

Now, Filia formed a small sphere of light between her hands, but didn't hold it out yet.

"Clay is superior to metal because it is the home of earth spirits, thus is ideal to contain magic. Most processed metal is vacated of spirits and hardly ever used as home anyway," she said. "I only said it was a secret to taunt you."

He scratches his head. "Fusion vessels? Now who is changing the topic?"

She gave that sad, slightly mocking smile. "It's not about that. We both have to be honest with each other, though of course I don't have world changing secrets, unlike you."

"Then what's the point?"

"You need to know you can trust me with things," she said. "I will not betray you, even if you did nothing to earn that. That is not  _my_  style."

Now she held out the sphere. Oh well, he might as well try. Nothing made sense today anyway.

He let in some of his own magic. The two forms of magic blended, weak as ever, but stable. A little touch of the power of chaos between them.

And she still hadn't said a word about what he'd told her. The fusion almost flickered out.

"Miss Filia, there's one more thing about where you stand ... doesn't it mean anything to you, what She desires?"

"I can't say. I have to be careful believing anything about even those I do know. Blind faith is not for me. However, I do understand it ... what it means  _that_  you've told me a secret so important to you. This means you can help me with something very important."

"Really? What are you up to, miss Filia?"

She withdrew her hand and its magic and looked ahead again.

"I'll tell you later. It's not a secret, just a plan in the making. If we can get Ragradia reborn, it'll be worth telling. It'll make everything fall together again. Val will be ... " She felt like she ought to cry, but had run out of tears. "I have to kill my son before  _he_  kills us all."

Filia wasn't so much mended as she was rebuilt — similar in the way a mosaic resembled the vases whose shards it was built from, but only in the pieces.

**· · · · · · ·**


	32. Claire's  Vagueness

**· · · · · · ·**

Deep in the eastern mountains, Rangort's monks had conjured up golems and carved out a lair. This had been their secret operation base for months now, which Claire thought they should have used to help the other clans organized, but alas. Rangort had peculiar ideas about being conversational with other units of life.

Fortunately, they couldn't hide from Claire and she had put her foot in the metaphorical door. Now it served as a sanctuary for the citizens of Sailoon City. The nasty fall out of their raid on the torture mountain would be the wrath of the devils. Claire had delivered the Sailoon royals to the doorstep of the monks, got them through the door and let Sailoon Justice persuade the rest. The monks weren't wicked, they didn't turn down anyone once they were forced to be involved.

In tracking Lyos, Dynast had beelined for the obvious Sailoon, only to find it empty. Dalphin didn't reveal herself, but some of her devils were seen exploring the outer world. Not that finding any traces would help when teleportation had been their final travel method.

Claire managed to throw "gotta be rested for optimal reincarnation" against "stay up late and help the refugees get settled" and slept that night. Most of that time was spent flow reading.

By godly standards, the valley of the ancient dragons was not very far. On the idea to find out where Luna and Filia had gone, the sensation of a talisman shard drew her there. What exactly she looked at was an enigma.

She caught word of Luna flying around and eventually traced her. God only knew what the woman was up to, she was all over the place. First she checked Sailoon, then hijacked an elven teleport post to get further down south. Eventually she came to the ancient dragons. All she found there was a message scribbled in the side of the mountains :  _Don't worry, it's alright. Stay put, I'll come talk to you soon_.

Luna didn't stay, didn't respond and didn't come back. She just cursed a lot about weak minded dragons. No idea what she meant to do now, but she could be tracked so that wasn't an immediate concern. She tuned out before the knight noticed.

Beyond that, Claire kept her eyes open for devil activity and checked on Sailoon's other cities. A select few dragons had been sent to defend those, which brought in more refugees during the night, but for the most part they went into hiding in their own country. If it was clear a city would be targeted, shelter could be made before the strike. Devil activity was scarce, all things considered.

Nature spirits whispered that the armies congregated up north, around Shabranigdu and Dugradigdu. That wasn't much useful, and the monks had angels that probably told them as much. Claire hoped they wouldn't send the Sailoonians home, in case she needed them still. In the morning, she would converse with the earth serving dragons and from there on she needed a foot in with her own tribe. She needed to lead, somehow.

Seconds thoughts were a nuisance that sleep couldn't save her from.

In the early morning, a gong sounded. Soon after, Orun appeared at the door. It was too heavy to push open for a human, so Claire tore herself from sleep and activated the internal lock. Orun stepped in with a basket on her back and another on her arm, each stacked with food.

To Claire it was just food, but Lyos recognized all sorts of favored things on it. He'd spend the night in an enchanted pool to lessen the pain of the curse, and couldn't be bothered to dry off as he staggered into the central room of their quarters.

"How are you doing?" Orun asked while unpacking the food.

"Aside of the arm and everything else? Good. I had the weirdest dream : Xelloss turned into some sort of abstract art installation while waxing about the nature of chaos, and Filia looked on like she was bored."

"Oh, you caught that?" Claire asked. "That wasn't a dream, I saw it while trying to track Luna."

Lyos just stared at her.

"What?" he got out after ten seconds. "Why was Xelloss bad cone art? ... Wait, does that mean the end happened too? Why on earth did Filia agree to go to Wolfpack Island?"

"I do not know, yes and I do not know," Claire said. "We may now speculate that they both lost their minds."

"But why was he bad abstract art?" Lyos asked again. "... what is abstract art?"

Orun handed an oversized quiche to him, which replaced his curiosity with fresh hunger. With the curse on him, he ate even more than usual.

Seeing him so focused on nothing but eating and killing those damn snakes, Orun said, "If you can't handle it right now, we can write the letters later?"

"No, let's get it out of the way. You found paper, right?"

With the entire village getting up and away in chaos, they had a lot of connections left behind; anything from trades to friends and family. Once in Sailoon, they had contacted all of them, but only with partial truth. Now, they wanted to tell the truth.

Orun and Lyos spoke of things that did not interest Claire personally, though she had to pay attention. Lyos cared because it was his life and his attachment, it couldn't skip this.

After Lina had returned to her continent, Lyos had filled the void by raising warriors and helping Orun's village rise back to its feet, using knowledge he'd gained from traveling the lands. A map on construction here, a lesson on agriculture there and every white magic spell Amelia could teach him.

All of that knowledge would be obsolete once the Aqualord was reborn, but it had not been, once. A little of the right information in the right place had more use than all the right information where nobody could get it.

 _Well duh_ , was Lyos's response to that.  _Isn't that obvious?_

Once, it hadn't mattered to Claire because her priorities had been lesser.

Lyos kept the letter to his mother last; they didn't have a good bond. She wondered what had gone wrong there, and couldn't explain. Not that this particular thing would matter much, but other little things had.

Heh, little things.

She knew what had to be done on the big scale. Stop Valgarv. Simple. But she also had to be a practical god and this involved acknowledging that emotions played a powerful role in chaos. Just throwing general advice at people? Not gonna work. In fact, she'd tumble face first into problems if she did not watch out.

In retrospect, telling Lina no more than that the world might end if she cast the Giga Slave was so amateurish. She had known that Lina and Gourry loved one another in a romantic way, the kind of state that sends brains into an irrational, idealized state for its early stages. Lina had not walked away with any more intense thoughts about the matter than a cementing of what she already knew : the Giga Slave is dangerous. Value of life? Nah. In the end she cast it anyway, having postponed it to the worst time. Granny Aqua's advice had not only been useless, through the Claire Bible Lina had perfected it into a more dangerous state.

And now, Volphied had strung her and everyone else along because she didn't see how all the little things worked together.

Clearly there issues with the execution of her "ensure everyone lives as long and well as possible" drive. Issues on par with shooting oneself in the foot and then trying to tie the wound by jumping in a tar pit.

Lyos grinned for the first time that day. "You're growing up a little."

Damn herself, that was offensive and sadly true.

**· · · · · · ·**

The monks summoned her later that morning, once their number was complete. Thankfully, they let Lyos have his peace for now. Keeping his pain in the back of her experience was hard enough as it was. She was called in alone and brought to a windowless, round room.

In human form, Rangort's monks concealed their faces behind hoods and masks that resembled smiling human faces. Well crafted expressions, but they became eerie to humans if they looked at them for too long ... hence the hoods. The uncanny masks only showed at times the humans had to fear punishment.

The monks wore them even before her. A test perhaps, or did they truly think of her as human now? Even their cloaks concealed their astral forms, though not their emotions.

An angel stood behind them, no face she recognized. Likely, there to report to Rangort and to sample emotions.

They sat her lonely before a half circle of them, in the position of the subordinate.

"Why did you hide from Earthlord Rangort?" the monk asked. "And we have been told you fled from Zelas's island. Why?"

"I did not hide, I was taken around against my will. Luna Inverse had killed the angels my sibling sent to retrieve me because she does not trust you, and that gave Zelas a window to arrive. Now, with Valgarv out, staying concealed has no more purpose, the real enemy knows I exist. I want to come clear to  _as many as possible_ about what's going on."

"Inform everyone? How senseless. Did you truly become a child?" the first monk asked.

"I can be more clear if I would know how much you know of the plan. Tel al-Metallium."

"I understand, but Earthlord Rangort prefers Elmegiddo. After all, we do not intend Shabranigdu to ever leave that place, as we do the gods."

"Well then, you know a fair deal. All I would like is my own dragon clan to be brought into the loop. We can leave that fool Ospirias away."

"Your own clan.  _You_  want to lead them, perchance?" another monk asked in bored disbelief. "You who did not recognize the strategical maneuvering of the Hellmaster until it was too late? You are incompetent."

"Ah ah ah,  _that_  is unfair. I shall leave military things to those who know. I only want spiritual leadership and I need to start somewhere. Right now. I need to guide and I need to understand my people to do my job in the best way possible."

"You may do so  _after_ your rebirth. Or did you perhaps  _not_ intend to unite with Rangort to lead the dragon clans into one great nation?" said the slightly prickly monk.

"Ha! You were inattentive a thousand years ago, and now you're just barely crawling up from ignorance. We've been organizing for centuries!" said the one with a hefty dose of pride.

Claire yawned to buy herself some time, and to convey her disdain. "Well ... how fair is it if I just wait around for you all to decide I'm competent enough? I might as well begin learning now."

At this point, the calm but cynical one said, "You know they do not see you as a leader, or they would have frequented the Claire Bible for that time. They do not bow before what you are now. Why play games with them in this difficult time?"

"I am no stranger to my own dragons and elves. My error was my own distance from my people. Let me bridge it. It will do no harm to the cause. I merely need you to confirm to my clan that I am in fact the actual Aqualord."

"Are you, now? We find it very unusual that you'd spend so much time holed up in your own mind to learn from human life, rather than communicate with your sibling."

Secrets in her mind, she needed a convincing lie.

No ... how about a reliable truth with some spicing?

"I feared the Earthlord would interrupt with my development. I had reached the conclusion to develop the cognitive skills for emotional bonds. I'd been developing love, which I believed Rangort would disapprove of. It deemed it worth exploring this angle, though I have reconsidered now I know how Valgarv exploited it."

It stung, when she said that. It shouldn't be doing that.

"Hmm. Whatever gave you  _that_ idea?"

"Xelloss. Now  _that_  was where I went wrong. He thinks it's like practicing, say, abstract art."

Not quite directly where the test had come from. He'd just wanted her to be fascinated the way he was ... which Rangort knew about, and might have told hir angels and monks. On top of that, Zelas and Xelloss were already capable of a halfassed variant of attachment to people, which Rangort might've spoken of to hir monks.

The lie bore the fruit of disdain and contempt, but also diminished suspicion. Those were easy to tell apart, one born from anger, the other from fear. Good. Fools weren't typically suspected of deicide.

"Well, it is good that you have been set straight," the unofficial lead monk said. "How about we discuss a better plan from now on, hmm?"

"Lead the way," she said. "I would gladly converse directly to my sibling if only that were possible right, but I shall respect you as substitute."

They had a lot of questions, and she dutifully answered as if she wholly agreed to share power with Rangort.

Was it worth it to rely on Xelloss and Filia for fusion magic? Were deity channels even needed?

They could find a way to reincarnate Luke with his mind intact — as long as his loyalty to Milina existed, it'd work. Milina was their ally so far.

Rangort continued healing, soon hir sight would operational enough to track down Luna and the angelsblood talisman.

Should that not work, they might reformat Milina into Siephied channel. This would take time on a preexisting creature, but Milina was a chimera already.

The biggest obstacle was contacting Lina Inverse to get her cooperation for the reincarnation. Just reaching across the worlds couldn't be done with talisman and a trail. Xelloss was the best at tracking her, not just because he knew Lina and her magic so well, but because he'd spent a thousand years becoming a jack of all trades. He had experience with tracking that didn't rely solely on the flow.

The monks suggested that once Rangort was strong enough, they could just grab Xelloss and make him cooperate somehow. If Zelas complained, they'd get rid of her and the priest would want his own survival and cooperate. Claire knew this would probably backfire, Xelloss was entirely too loyal to Zelas and the consequences of taking his mistress away would not be pretty. Last person who had tried to claim Xelloss got a prime audience with the Lord of Nightmares.

She couldn't say as much. In the plan as Rangort knew it, there wouldn't be a strong reason to worry about Zelas or Xelloss. In this plan, Zelas wasn't going to have a chance to claim all of the Igdu power, or in her absence, neither would Xelloss. Dancing around this part wasn't too hard, though. She just pointed out that Luke wasn't an actual channel yet and really, let's not waste resources.

She began to see why it might be fun, for Xelloss, to manipulate people.

**· · · · · · ·**

They didn't confirm her identity, not the way she had hoped. "Technically it's the real Aqualord" one of them told Azonge and Milgazia, that was it. No impact, nobody sought her out. She wasn't invited in strategic discussions either.

With little else to do, Claire either tended to Lyos or resolved small conflicts between Sailoon soldiers and the dragons that had so recently taken over their city. Claire tried to mediate conflicts and disputes as well as she could, which was to say  _barely_. Gods, what had she been doing for six thousand years? She couldn't make a single step without being reminded of what a waste of time she had been. Circumstances weren't even that much of a catalyst to blame for her ignorance. Her little revelation had been at breakfast, with no dramatic prompt. It should have been easy to get there, if only she had bothered to think earlier.

During noon, a priest from down south teleported in with a variety of magic gems that might ease Lyos's pain. Claire had been out right when he was retrieved to a special section of the underground. Since she could cut across a canyon to get there faster, she unfolded her wings and flew the short distance — no devils were near, it was safe.

Well, no devils, but at the bottom of the canyon there was definitely something astral disrupting the flow. She lowered just a little, wondering why the angels did not notice it.

Ah, no need for alarm. Seated on a weird red mount, the Sage of Siephied waved at her. She wasn't worth fearing, so Claire descended.

"Greeted," Lassandra said, and Claire froze as she tried to grasp why she didn't feel very greeted.

"Sage of Siephied, what brings you here?" she asked.

"Boredom," and the lie was so clear she didn't even need to think about it.

Lassandra ran a green hell gem over her fingers, playing as if she didn't have a care in the world. She whistled an old song, the mere sound of it bent the flow to her. Claire couldn't tell whether the world was her spare storage or whether she was so one with the flow, she existed as an extension of it.

The difference was disproportionate even with Claire's limited sense. If she had even an inkling of the Sage's powers, she could learn so much faster. Why did this woman have all that? Not even gods were this attuned.

"Dynast and Dalphin are on Elmegiddo," Lassandra lied. "Their high ranked devils are not. It will be safe to remove enemies from the island. There is no need to fear attracting godly attention."

Well, that was useful to know, but why did she tell her alone? "What are you doing?"

Lassandra just smirked and asked, "Is it easier to forget Val?"

"I did not forget."

"Did you process?"

Claire blinked, then narrowed her eyes. "What are you going on about?"

"Did you ever cry when you were born?"

"Of course not, I am not human."

"Would you like to know what it's like?"

"What, crying or being human?"

"Neither," and that was a lie again. "You do not want to know."

That ... that was a lie too. She did ... want ... to know. She didn't. She did. Maybe she denied it. She did.

She barely noticed the Sage jumping off her mount and sauntering close; she had to figure out this ... thing ... contradiction ... she wanted to ...

Lassandra laid her hands on her shoulders, pushing her down. In the same motion, Claire shrank back to her child form. She hadn't initiated this, but it came naturally.

"What are you ..."

A life law circle she hadn't realized had been cast broke open, somewhere invisible, and a flood of emotions poured  _in_. Like she'd been a void before, Claire felt things she hadn't ever experienced. After a the initial confusion, she matched them up with things she'd  _tasted_  ... but the resemblance felt too distant. Casting aside grief was hardly the same as living through it ...

"... doing to me ..."

The emotions pulled up an array of memories, first and foremost Val. She lost her focus in the torrent.

Val was false, so no point mourning him and feeling sad for her own loss was so useless, but now all that poured in and caused a chain reaction.

People need to learn the names to describe their own pain before they can figure it out. Claire didn't even know where to begin.

She asked Lassandra, but got no answer. She asked herself, but could only compare to lives she'd touched while passing by. She tried to make sense of grief by categorizing it to its sources, but that didn't help they way it mingled with other thoughts.

Valgarv had betrayed her, but she had betrayed her own people a thousand years ago. She had let them build and believe a religion that worshiped her because she allegedly deserved it on base of being a god. Even as she thrived on their faith, she had done nothing in return until the war became inconvenient for her.

Up until now, that had just been a tactical miscalculation. Treachery and loyalty had nothing to do with it, let alone did grief and regret. This was supposed to be just about dealing with Val. She could handle that. When she'd walked into Valgarv's dreams and found no Val, she decided not to care. It wouldn't be logical, even if it bothered her.

"I don't want this," she whispered. It came out strangled and with tears. "Don't. I can figure these things out by thinking, it get in the way if I have to feel ... stop it,  _please_. I don't want it."

"You want to move away," Lassandra said, which swung her conscious mind into more contradiction while the mortal feelings assaulted her mind with regret and sorrow and loneliness and missing something and most of all guilt. She'd tasted it before, she had never felt it. This was ... worse than anything she'd known before. If this would last forever ...

"~ It will last forever. It will never get better, ~" Lassandra thought at her.

"I don't want it any second longer!" she roared out, or at least she tried. It came out pathetic.

"That's not okay," Lassandra lied, a soothing fibre in her voice.

"I don't  _need_  it to be the person I  _have_ to be. As far as I have a choice in who I will be, I don't need it," she choked through the tears. "It isn't fundamental to me, it just gets in the way."

"I deny everything you say," she lied. "I do this to annoy you. However, don't you think you need to know what you're cutting, so you don't leave bits behind?"

That was a good point ... assuming that was the point. The way this woman talked, it was hard to say.

Lassandra hummed an old tune and felt nothing herself, at least not intense enough for Claire to notice ... now ...

Did she suffer compassion fatigue after ages, was she a psychopath, was she not human at all? No way to tell. All emotion she got from the sage was curiosity and a little bit of joy — fascination, then.  _She_ had no guilt. All of it growing had to be the fruit of Claire's mind, filtered through humanity ...

... she could not just be the Sage. It shouldn't be possible that a mere human could just supplant the very functions of her soul like this. It only made sense of the resonance between them had the same root, the same soul ... if the arms around her belonged to Siephied.

The very first thing the Sage had told the gods when cotnacting them thousands of years ago was her identity, Siephied. She had lied, as always, but then what was she?

Lassandra couldn't be, but it became easier to think about something other than Val or the war.

There wasn't a clear cut line where Claire could tell that now, Lassandra had stopped. It had to be some point before she stood up and walked away. Quiet settled in, and the feelings ebbed, but the memory of the experience stayed.

She stood up and unfolded her wings. Without looking back, she returned to the palace.

Her wings out of magic obeyed, but her physical legs didn't walked quite right. Fear, she realized, lay below the fading blur of other emotions.

Why had she even let that woman do this to her? She ... wanted to, right? It didn't make sense to want it ...

She staggered through the halls, painstakingly aware of every fibre in her body. That sensation should have been exiled for months, but it returned full force on the brink of mortality.

Orun came running down the hall, and Claire filtered a little backdrop information from her mind; Lyos had sent her, of course.

 _I'm alright_ , she meant to say. The purpose was to make her stop worrying, not to answer a question accurately. She didn't how she was right now.

Ah, as a priestess she caught more than just that. She knew what it was about.

Orun knelt down and embraced her, full of sympathy. Claire let it happen, could intellectually understand it was kind of her, and more than before didn't ever want to  _be_  like this. It become despicable to her, right then, that she'd forever grieve for someone gone ... no, who had never really existed.

She gently pushed Orun away. "I do not need comfort, I need to speak to the monks of Rangort. It is urgent."

Orun looked very much like she didn't believe Claire, but nodded and said, "I will go find an angel."

"Thank you," Claire said, while quietly wondering whether she could keep the experience of gratitude if she threw attachment out. That at least felt nice and uncomplicated.

**· · · · · · ·**

Once she had the monks and Lassandra in one place, she laid out the tactical details the Sage had shared.

Rangort still wanted to conquer Elmegiddo. In theory, e had the power for it. In practice, e was currently too clumsy to use it without risk of wrecking the island. With Dalphin there, it wasn't worth the risk of her destroying everything, but now it was clear she wasn't, an invasion could be done. In theory. Cleaning out Dalphin's occupation would have to be done with smaller entities.

Thanks to Luna wiping out a good chunk of Rangort's angels, that fell to the dragons and, in the self proclaimed service of justice, the Sailoon forces. Claire wondered whether the monks had complied with sheltering them just to get this favor, since they were awfully quick to accept their help.

She let the preparations for invading Elmegiddo to others with more experience in warfare, and alas, that meant Rangort's monks. Really, she might as well start keeping a list of things to stop failing at.

Phil and Amelia would frontline the human involvement of the invasion on Elmegido, naturally. They had a lot more experience with ground-bound warfare than the dragons, many of whom had never bothered learning to fight in their human forms. The elves were better at it, but they had a dose of arrogance too, which led to clashing with the Sailoonians. Those who had become chimeras could keep up with elves, so that boiled down to arguing about whose experience was most relevant.

Observing the Sailoon royals clash heads over justice seemed educative, so she paid attention.

Oops. Rather than learn anything useful, her own mind began to put her experience under Lassandra together with this.

What would it be like to live like Phil and Amelia? They bore sorrow but she was strong anyway, and they had room for happiness. They were the product of genes, of incubation in a womb, of education, experience and interaction. Claire herself lacked the first three — comparing herself to them felt wrong.

Nevertheless, their compassion for other lives was a very useful motivator to make Ospirias move faster, so the war would be over sooner and less would die. Claire had to propel herself with gritted teeth just to make the pressure go away, but for the Sailoon royals, energy to do this came like a second nature. It didn't seem hard to be like this.

Maybe that's what Lassandra wanted her to consider. Motivation could make it easier to do what's wright.

On the other hand, a few hours later, said motivation to do Justice to the world drove Amelia to confront Claire.

The princess strode into their room, gloomy determination waving off of her. Claire could eat it, just barely.

"Miss Claire, we need to talk about the fate of mister Lyos."

Here it came. Lina had once end cracked a joke that Amelia wouldn't like it one bit once she found out. Prepare for an onslaught of justice speech, and Zel would have a few things to say too, she had bet.

Just for safety, Claire sat right at Lyos's side and let the curse on his arm break the flow. That way, they could talk without any angel looking in.

Amelia sensed this, hesitated, but then stepped into the distorted zone and crossed her arms.

"Mister Zelgadis told me everything Orun told him, and I just heard you're going ahead with the reincarnation  _before_  miss Lina returns. That means miss Lina isn't there to figure out some way for mister Lyos to survive, right?"

"There's no way for me to survive even if she were around," Lyos groaned, while burning away a snake that just emerged.

"Can't you just take the power  _out_ of Lyos to absorb it?" Amelia asked. "Surely there must be a way for him to survive."

"That's like asking to make a river flow upstream without using magic," Claire said. "Stray power clings to souls by its nature, that is how knights and sages come to exist in the first place. The soul of the gods work differently. Did you never wonder why the remaining gods never merged with each other, thus becoming near to Siephied's power, and take down the sealed pieces one by one?"

"I assumed the gods were too lazy," Zelgadis said.

"Ha! I won't contest that, but if we could have return Siephied to existence, we  _would_ have. Too bad we can't just cough up new souls. We cannot even destroy equivalent souls without taking our own soul and doing the astral equivalent of using it as a bludgeoning hammer. We  _can_ program our corpse to act in a certain way, but there's no going back. And I? When you get down to the bottom, I'm a subdimensional database given fleshy form and a makeshift soul. I can't contain that power, Lyos can't wield it. The best we can do is throw it all in the blender and have Lina go chaos on it again, hoping she can use the pieces to stitch it together."

"So, no blending ... this is like when the power of Lyos and Valwin cancelled each other out?" Amelia asked.

Claire nodded. "Right in one. If we just set it loose, it dissolves into the flow or it rushes into unstable little me. I then go boom."

That sank the mood more. Hmm, she had just shot down their hopes. Right.

"There's gonna be someone similar to both of us," Lyos said. "It's not quite like cessation of existence ... but it'll change into something that I would never be, I guess. But, I'll get rid of this damn curse."

Orun almost choked up, but physically only her dim smile faltered. Her emotions sunk to near poisonous.

For the first time, it occurred to Claire that Orun was about to lose another person whom she loved. Claire had  _known_  it, but hadn't found it anything worth really thinking  _about_ , nor had it evoked an opinion or feeling.

It meant something now, but she had a hard time understanding what it was to herself. It'd do her no good to explore it. She  _had_ to be a guardian, whether or not the plan fell through, whether or not her rebirth even happened.

Amelia bent down and put a hand on Orun's shoulder. Two leaders with loss in their life. Amelia didn't even need to think on what to do, or why to do it. It was just like her, to offer comfort.

Lyos with his curse couldn't get up, didn't have the energy to do what he wanted, and didn't know how to make Orun feel less awful. It tempted him to drop it all, but he didn't, because he knew many more like Orun would exist if there wasn't a god in place soon ...

... maybe Rangort was good enough after all?

Claire could not tell whether that was his thought, or her own.

That was unacceptable. She dissected the pieces and threads. At its root lay Lyos's compassion trying to balance two needs, two loves;  _Philia_  and  _Agape_  as some cultures defined them. Friendship, and universal love. The latter served Claire's needs better, and developing it might hypothetically make her own experience with carrying out her programming less unpleasant.

She wouldn't quite be herself, but then again, that didn't matter to her. Maybe the best way to be attached to people and like existing was a middle way. She could come to appreciate certain types of people, rather than the people themselves. Worth exploring, even if the look Lyos gave her was rather horrified, and what he felt even worse.

Horror wasn't something she'd take along, she decided.

**· · · · · · ·**

Night fell, and most went to bed early to be fresh in the morning. Claire meant to use her sleeping time for scouting, but Lyos distracted her with his hang ups about humanity. It had sunk in, by now, that Claire had decided against this after her little encounter with Lassandra. He couldn't understand.

This all dissolved into arguing about their identity, which was old news till Lyos wondered what their name even would be. That one was new, so she indulged it.

"Ragrairyos," Claire said.

"We don't actually know whether my personality's going to be in there," Lyos said. "Though, my name  _is_  pretty cool. How about Ragradyos? The d gives dignity."

"Claire needs to be in there too," she said. She tried pouting, but didn't like how it looked.

It'd be so convenient if he could just agree with her, but it became evident she was not the dominant personality by grace of being (technically) the older mind. At least in a separated dynamic.

"~ Claire, protip at life, don't ever say talk out loud about your wishes to brainwash people. ~"

Lyos felt very strongly about his mind being taken over, for good reason. However, the thought had come into her own mind uncalled for, just a natural product, and she could not choose whether to share it.

"~ You're going to take that value along into Ragradia with all your might, aren't you? ~" she asked.

"~ You bet. You're going to have a damn moral compass about possession whether you like it or not. ~"

Duly noted and taken into consideration regarding mental welfare, but with no moral value assigned. That somewhat satisfied him, but not by much. Lyos wasn't exactly a bastion of virtue, but he found it ironic how much more he had compared to Claire. That was also duly noted.

She was about to resume the name argument when Orun arrived, bringing along Milgazia.

Orun had a rather confused look. "He said he'd like to assist, but ... I'm not sure what with. He also asked about whether you're sure of everything."

"I absolutely am, more than ever," Claire said, before realizing she might have to ask what he even meant.

Milgazia approached her without bowing or much regard. Most of his emotions was weariness and doubt. "I would like to know why you plan to continue with your revival."

"Why? Because there needs to be a better god, I can make that happen. Now that Shabranigdu is back, it's all the more pressing, so I take risks."

That didn't ease his messy emotions at all.

"But if this machine was built under guidance of Valgarv—"

"Volphied," Claire said. "Valgarv is her general, but he doesn't have the wits to design this machine."

"Volphied," he said with an uncertainty in his voice. Ah, that's where the doubt came from, he didn't like having to think about  _evil_  gods. "If an enemy built this machine, how can we trust it will do what you want?"

"We are betting that Lina Inverse will have the upper hand in Elmegiddo. End of discussion, Milgazia."

She meant to sound confident, but she had plenty of doubt below the surface. Mentally she rewound Val's memories of his drawings, which he'd let her look at once in Kataart. Good order, she had never even noticed he hadn't been real. The construct was that good.

Rangort had thought all along that the drawings happened because of inspirational visions slung at the child. It wasn't certain at first whether he received them, but then he began to draw ... and play them all ... Xelloss took those drawings back every time, having been told it was the best way to check for whether he remembered anything of the past life ... nobody suspected ...

They should have. Val's hollow was unprecedented, but since it didn't disable holy magic per say, it hadn't reeked foul ... right under their nose the entire time ...

No, don't think about that. Emotions didn't listen to reason, but she could prevent them from getting worse.

Like waking from a haze, she got her mind on track. Lyos had reached out his healthy arm for her shoulder, now he pulled back.

Val's drawings had first and foremost been a clue what pieces went where, when it came to putting together the collapsed machine. However, there had been specifics too and if Valgarv could just craft messengers out of regular animals, he could have altered things after Lina had figured them out. There was no clear way to tell as of yet.

There. Done. She could think about this without getting emotional. Damn Sage.

"She fazes out sometimes," Lyos said. "She's still looking for Luna, if she thinks she's got a hold, this happens."

This was not in accordance to her honesty policy, but Lyos insisted they don't go tell the unstable dragon about their own unstability.

Hmm, now he brought it up, Milgazia did seem a little horribly broken. Nothing to see on the outside, but that was some hefty poison dripping off of him.

Would she know the right things to say if she felt sorry for him?

Not really, probably. She didn't need to do that, because Milgazia on his own said, "If I can be of assistance, I will do so."

How odd. Almost desperate to be needed, a far cry from the stoic dragon she knew.

"Yes, you can help. I want to ... try drawing someone into a dream, so I can speak with them. Luna Inverse. Will you dream for us?"

"~ Is that safe? ~" Lyos asked.

"~ We hid our presence from Valgarv well enough, this dragon will be easy. I want to know what Luna's up to, and I have no other way to be serving life right now but to get a hold of the angelsblood talisman. ~"

Oblivious to this, Milgazia nodded once. "Where must I sleep?"

"You can lay down on the couch, and wake and leave once we are done. I merely need a golden dragon's signature to pull in Luna."

He nodded again. Claire cast a sleep spell, whole Orun traced the magic. She had danced with Luna to catch the memories of gods, she would hold her soul's trail.

Luna got farther away from the disturbed north, but she was a human still and there were thousands of miles between them and her current location. She had to make a few stops for food and rest. If she was parallel to them, the night would soon stop her in her movement.

**· · · · · · ·**

"So this is your dream or your nightmare?" Luna tapped the cold, morphing walls of the Claire Bible dimension. "Or maybe it already was both and you couldn't make up your mind?"

Claire leaned against the wall and let it melt into a relief of her old dragon self. Lyos's consciousness took his human form atop her head. All human, except his coat blended into the scales.

"It's already started," Lyos said. "The moment Claire got out of the Bible, we've begun to merge. All that's left is for Lina to put the pieces together. Stay out of it, Luna."

"Oh me, yes, I am completely convinced now, my apologies. I'll retreat at once under the weight of having seen the error of my ways!" she hollered up from far below them. Her voice carried an undertone of a dragon's rumble, rather than this being a second voice.

Luna knew about blending human souls and godly power too well for listening to the argument there was no going back.

"So, you bring me here to argue the virtue of sacrifice, hmm?" Luna said.

"It's no virtue, but a necessary harm," Claire sneered. "Virtue implies value, but that differs per culture. Some call it heroic first, others tragic; there is no consensus, so I don't bother anyone with virtue. No, I just want to stop people from dying and it's clear that we need a better god on the scene. I want you to stop interfering, but to argue, I'd first need to know what you want."

"I don't want to lose my power," she said. "It's mine now, and it's awesome. But it also means I'm going to exist several hundreds years  _less_  than anyone cause of that damn reincarnation thing. Recycling into a god, offed by Megiddo, same thing. I want my own shot at an afterlife as I see fit, just like all other humans. I don't wanna get sacrificed."

"That has nothing to do with me," Lyos snapped. "Like we'd want your damn mind mixed in! Stay out of our business!"

"And what the hell is your business? Not being in hell. You're gonna stop existing, right? Why? Don't give me heroic bullshit here. Why do you believe this will work out?" Luna manifested a giant claw, pointing it at Claire. "You could just as well call her a dictator now. She gave up giving a shit about people when Val betrayed her. How's that gonna be good for people, hmm?"

Claire took a cue from Rangort and dropped a rock on Luna. "I beg to differ. I paused personalized affection only."

Luna's wrath set Claire ablaze, but she just killed the sensation of burning in herself. Perks of being a god fragment.

Startled at the rising contempt, Orun stepped between their line of sight. "Luna, why does it matter to you? None of this will affect you, and you're not doing this for Lyos's sake, right?"

"Yeah," Lyos said. "Do you really think we want _you_ inside the new Phied? We don't need your egoism."

"What I think is that you'll just erase me in the process, like what happened with Laust. I bet my power can give you a boost."

"What did you hear? Is it something Filia speculated on?" Claire asked.

"Filia didn't need to speculate, she heard the criminals testify. Xelloss killed Laust to experiment with soul gates. I wonder why, maybe on how to steal powers? I bet they're preparing for something."

Chaos damn it all. Why did Xelloss have to drop  _that_ little detail?

"Laust died to cover for the southern sealed Shabranigdy and Xelloss is naturally curious and driven to compete with Filia. That had nothing to do with Elmegiddo," Claire said.

"Yeah, sure. Got any evidence for that?"

Claire fell silent.

In itself, putting a machine that can summon godly power to it in the middle of the world was questionable to any godly creature. Lina had dismissed the idea of telling this to Luna point blank, because they had no evidence they were  _not_ going to use it on her.

Now there was seeming evidence on the table they were sacrificing unwilling allies for reasons explicitly related to soul gates of mortals. Which Luna now knew could be used to pry power away from gods and into mortal souls, something she was never supposed to learn, let alone do. Orun now carried a fragment of Valwin, there was no denying it.

"Nothing to say? Hmm, I am so surprised. Why, Zelas put Xelloss in front of me and had him explain the whole plot. I could even taste his emotions, and she did not use her command to make him lie. I'd have noticed that since he dislikes it. I learned that Laust's death has nothing to do with my fate, yet here you are, not talking." Luna snapped her finger. "Oh wait, that did not happen. It's almost like there's a secret that'll make me do something incredibly bad ... for  _your_ plan. Obviously, I'd do it only because it's good  _for me_."

"Do you really think Lina would sacrifice Laust?"

"I think Zelas and you all would. As for my little sister? She once was ready to sacrifice  _everything_  for a man. Who knows what she became while she was away exploring the worlds?"

With that, Luna kicked them out.

**· · · · · · ·**

The virtue of sacrifice ... oh, right. Residue of dreams fell in place, and she realize what Luna meant to do. She wanted to stop Lyos was participating in the rebirth.

Great. If Luna actually found Claire and Lyos here, that would be a problem. Nobody stood even remotely a chance.

So, how to get the monks to leave in the middle of the night?

She explained them Luna wanted Elmegiddo destroyed, and then decided to lie.

"We really ought to hurry and get there before Luna, though. When I shared dreams with Luna, I noticed a lot of remnants of Filia's knowledge there. She might have figured out how to channel godly power on her own."

"What?"

Time for ignorance, which she got by tilting her head just a little like a confused child. "Well, she is a chimera affected by the pillar and she's got control of how she changes now, right?"

Do please be afraid of what she could become, so she suggested quietly.

This was complete and utter nonsense. Being Siephied's channel wasn't anything one could become by picking up knowledge or chopping off pieces of gods. She'd seen Luna's transformation up close and it wasn't anything that could be modified into being a channel ... but she was the only one who had observed her during this process. Lyos was also here, but with his curse it wasn't the same.

It scared them just enough.

**· · · · · · ·**

Getting a reasonable escort of army proportion in the sky still took a few hours, then they had to hop them all across various beacons, and then fly into the distorted area. By morning they were above the sea, and it became harder to find any trace on Luna's whereabouts.

Was this the distortion of the ancient battle, or Luna learning? She might have leeched information out of Claire's dreams ... who knew?

Rangort resided in the outer line of the unstable zone, which did not allow immediate teleportation, but they could get close enough by a nearby island with a beacon. From there, it was a short flight to the god.

Short for dragons in that it took maybe half an hour at their top speed. Claire took on her smallest form and stayed close to Lyos, keeping down the pain of his curse. Orun sat behind them in silence, using her holy power on the dragon to help it fly faster and contain the curse's effects.

Rangort had projected leagues worth of giant worm in the sky, which looked like overkill to Claire but eldritch to Lyos. He was a mere mortal, size could impress him that way and power could inspire awe, both emotions Claire had never really developed. She didn't care to either.

"Daaaaamn ... " Lyos muttered. "It's gotta be like twenty miles long. Can we do that, after ... you know?"

"We can."

"How is this even possible?" Lyos asked. "There's so many pieces."

"Gods are far more in tune with the flow of the world," Claire said. "Many of those spare islands are actual matter from this world, called to them on adjusted natural law. Rangort's main body is the serpentine entity, the sky islands surrounding hir are upheld by their power."

As they rose higher, an angel shifted into the physical world before them.

"Please follow me," he said, before leading them to the sky above Rangort and past the islands. The southern dragons occupied those, and a few empty ones were reserved for the newcomers. The three leaders instructed their legions where to go, at which point the angel said to leave that to him.

They ought to join the strategy meeting, and he pointed at Rangort.

By now they were well above Rangort and could see a small group of dragons atop the god's head; monks of the south and priests of the second holy order of the east. "Go there."

"We are the land  _on_  Earthlord Rangort?" Azonge cried out.

"Yes, as you clearly heard," Ospirias said. "What's wrong, are you afraid?"

"No! Of course not! But to use a god as a landing site is surely disrespectful!"

"That is for the god to say, surely," Ospirias snapped.

"Let's just land," Milgazia said.

He made it sound easy.

It  _should_  be easy, really.

If not for unexpected things happening.

First, Valwin showed up to the and brought along storms and panicking sky spirits. Flying ahead became a little bit harder.

Five minutes later, Vrabazard joined in.

Just as Claire wondered why both of them had appeared at the same time, Luna fell down from the sky on burning wings, right behind Lyos.

"Hi there, heard you liked to sacrifice yourself. Bad boy, we're not playing that tune," she said.

Before he got a word in, she scooped him up and away she was. Off into the clouds that Valwin brought along.

Well, that had gone fantastically bad.

Milgazia looked back, as if to make sure that had really happened.

"Yep, that was Luna and we're in deep trouble," Claire said.

"What is she up to?"

"Stopping my rebirth, and apparently getting my siblings into a fight." Maybe she shouldn't sound so careless, cause that just panicked Milgazia.

"Why does she want this?"

Had nobody briefed this guy?

"Good question, let's answer it later."

Valwin steamrolled close to Rangort, irregardless of the damage it caused to the dragon armies. E should see them, but e didn't heed them ... and Milgazia noticed.

"Do we even matter to the gods?" he asked.

"You matter to me, but not to any of the others," she said, patting him on the shoulder.

And it could be debated how much he mattered. Azonge was cooperative, Milgazia was only notable because he lived. His value to her goals was not unique.

"Not even Earthlord Rangort?"

"No, of course not," she said. "The gods not caring has nothing to do with their disorientation. Can we get to a safe spot now?"

He didn't affirm this time, just swooped ahead. In the half turn, Claire got a look at the sea below them. Just a glimpse through the rushing clouds.

And because this apparently was going to be an all around meeting, there was the Zelas's Wolfpack.

"Milgazia, Azonge, there are devils around. Don't attack them!" she called out. At least not till they knew what Zelas would do.

They heeded her, as did the monks of Rangort (for now). Ospirias didn't.

Zelas's armies tried rather hard not to engage with the hostile dragons. Oh well, she had tried securing their safety.

Now, if Zelas was here, anytime now ... and there they were.

Draconic Filia rose to Milgazia's side, and Xelloss on her other side. He waved, but she looked frantic.

"Miss Claire, where is mister Lyos? Did miss Luna get him?"

"Yes," Claire said. "And what got you, that you're suddenly working with the Wolfpack again?"

"Nothing got me,  _I_  got the truth! And it's ridiculous! You all just presumed we'd be too weak to protect touchy information. Well, I'm going to talk to miss Luna and put everything on the table, like it should have been from the start!"

"Nice to know even gods are not spared that tone, miss Filia," Xelloss piped in, with a sprinkle of hope and amusement. "But this is really a bad time. We ought to find miss Luna, right?"

Lyos was ... somewhere else. He just saw lots of sea and chaos, that didn't help at all.

"I can probably give you a direction, once we're out of this storm," Orun said.

"Affirmative," Claire said. "Any minute now."

Filia didn't feel like waiting, but she had to. Claire tried to avoid getting any of her absolutely sick emotions near her, but at the same time, she was just a little curious at Xelloss.

He hovered in the social sense. Well, not like usual. He ... paid attention in a new way? Hard to tell.

The moment they were out of Valwin's turmoil, both Filia and Orun scried for Luna's trail, and found her headed east. She was too far off already to be seen, but following it was their best bet. Filia turned wings and shot off, but Xelloss lingered.

"My liege would like a word with you, though in this mess I seem to have lost trace of her. So I guess I'll just ask it," he said. "How much did you spill?"

"Nothing that'll endanger you, I'm just being communicative with my dragon clan," Claire said. "At least, I would be if they accepted me as the Aqualord."

Milgazia cast them both an odd look, which somehow ... worried Xelloss? He shot a quick glance at where Filia had disappeared. Probing possibilities, perhaps? He was more alert, and more ... he had something extra. Maybe his abstract art efforts were hard to digest.

"You did something that made you a lot more interesting, Xelloss."

His smile flickered, he forced it back and looked fake.

"I suppose I did something. I tried to imagine being her to figure out how to make her listen again," he said, finger pointed up. "I'm not sure how well that worked, but I am making some sort of progress, so it'll do. It'd be embarrassing if we couldn't get fusion magic to work again.

To her own surprise, Claire laughed. Of course he would, first child of the traitor wolf pack, find that a compelling reason to experiment with himself, when magic depended on social bonds.

Really, it all boiled down to logical choices and potential mental components. What worked for him might not work for others, and so it was for Claire too. Xelloss had tried long to get her interested in the world just by fascination, but it had never occurred to him he should have talked about the fabrication of personality.

"What's funny?" he asked.

"The way you accidentally helped me along my road," she said. "Now go with your dragon and be useful to Lina and your lords. I'll get to the center of Elmegiddo and wait there until I get to be useful for my people."

She didn't need compassion and empathy if she could just have an outsider's interest in the way minds worked, and for an added bonus, get herself a hobby.

**· · · · · · ·**


	33. Luna's Sight

**· · · · · · ·**

Lyos did not appreciate being carried bridal style, if all those emotions waving off were any indication. Or maybe it was the abduction part. Or the cancellation of his death.

They'd been through the usual. Lyos demanding to be brought back, Lyos arguing almost nobly about the goals, Lyos kicking and trying to swing his cursed arm at her, and Luna ignored all of that. Except they snakes. They burned.

"Dammit, Luna. There are two maddened gods, a war and a conspiracy. People are dying. The one thing we can improve is setting Rangort back on our side by reviving Ragradia. If Zelas, Rangort and Ragradia work together, we can make a difference!"

"You don't know whether you can make a difference. Could all be Valgarv's plot."

"But Lina, Rangort and Zelas still built Elmegiddo, they can control it!"

Yeah, sure.

By now, Rangort caught on something fishy was happening. The massive body opened eyes all along its length and finally broke from its stagnant position. Flocks of dragons rose from the islands that Rangort shook loose.

Good thing she had baited Valwin and Vrabazard to come rampage here, because she needed the diversion.

After grabbing Lyos, Luna had angled aside Valwin, under cover of shadow and storm. Now she broke out of the storm, making sure Rangort saw her now, then she angled below Valwin.

"Luna, no!" Lyos screamed. "Don't go—"

"Oh myself, you convinced me not to, whatever shall I do!" she said and increased her speed.

Rangort, being such a nice flatworm, tried to curled below Valwin without disturbing the other god.

"Can you swim like this?" Luna asked.

"I can not drown," Lyos said.

"Great, you go do that." She tossed Lyos into the ocean and shot straight up, square past Rangort. She counted on her actions making no sense to Rangort.

Valwin was in his classic silvery dragon form, long, writhing and trying to look every where at once, yet e had only two eyes. Luna kept her distance from the gray steam that composed hir manes. Once she got parallel to the side, she set herself alight and flew toward the god.

Her projection and power faltered in the distorted holiness, she missed her hold and fell. Only at her third try did she catch hold of a scale. Using more physical force than magical, she pulled herself up.

The astral plane around Valwin felt like blocks clunking around each other, drowning out all perception with cut flow. Luna was close enough to catch the errant memories and idea, but only in pieces. At every edge, raw energy burned and frizzed out.

 _Once now, ten years years, or a thousand, a war had been fought_ — not relevant. She had to get closer to the core.

Somewhere in Valwin had to be an astral energy point, like what Lei had pin pointed on herself. Something that regulated projected power. It was a gamble, but one worth taking.

Projecting was near impossible, it only cut into her. She limited it to a thin layer of scales and claws close to herself, giving herself stability with the talisman. Through this, she tried to decipher the godly flow. Once day she'd have to learn to do that without talisman, but right now she was grateful for it.

There were  _multiple_  cores. Of course, that's how a god could use their soul to carve into the single core of a devil.

She climbed as close as she could to the nearest and gathered power power in her flesh. She bled from below the fingernails; humanity wasn't meant to hold fire in their veins. A little she translated into projection and external fire, but that chipped away quickly.

The sensation of a Law Circle was much harder outside of the dream layer. Under her breath, she recited the Rezast spell. A twisted circle appeared, flickering weak, but enough. Luna pushed her power through, hooked in, and pulled.

All the mass of Valwin curled up instantly and roared. The steam on hir back turned icy cold and wind scattered all the clouds. Still below, Rangort got caught right in the middle of it.

Luna let herself fall and brought her wings out, shooting down at the ocean. Rangort saw her, but only for a moment before Valwin's trashing hit hir.

Down in the sea, Lyos had created an air bubble around himself and was rather busy swimming away from her. At leisure, Luna followed him. He'd run out of air eventually, and she a little too shaken for a struggle right now, though she'd love to knock some sense into him. She did not just hijack a god just for him to peddle to his doom.

The moment he went for air, she grabbed him and pulled him along, still close to the surface.

He punched her in the face with his cursed arm, which got her a bleeding nose and complimentary snake biting in her throat.

Oh, now he'd done it.

She stopped abruptly, projected a dragon skull and threw Lyos face down on it. After burning the snake, she stood before him.

"Do not do that again," she said lightly. "I'm trying not to be hyper violent, you're not making it easy."

"Then don't abduct people!"

"Baby steps, kid," she said, absentminded. Behind them, Rangort her twisted around Valwin and tried dragging hir away from Elmegiddo. The island itself was a mere spot on the horizon, but to gods the distance was nothing. Already the gods closed the distance, as Valwin tried to get away from Rangort. It was up in the air whether e knew the island was important, but that didn't matter. With some luck, they'd wreck it.

"The hell did you do, Luna?" Lyos groaned. He'd sat up, one arm clutching the cursed flesh of his shoulder.

"I've asked you that too," Luna said, pointing at the bestial gods. "You wanna die to bring another one of those things in the world?"

"No, Claire and I are bringing a  _better_  deity into this world. One who will take care of life."

"Stop being dramatic and think—"

"Oh, I'm really good at thinking of myself. Didn't Lina tell you how we met?" As he said this, he gave off irritation and anger, yet under that, the subtle, special fear of death.

He really wasn't the sort of guy to feel like he should be sacrificing himself. He wanted to live, yet somehow he went against that.  _Why?_

Luna couldn't accept bullshit like that.

Vrabazard was still around, unoccupied. At first he had been interested in the struggle of the other two, then Elmegiddo, but always from a higher altitude ... for observation, Luna realized too late.

Now e saw them.

E was just slow enough for Luna to be able to surround herself and Lyos with skeletal projection.

When e fell from the sky, flickering and forceful, the ocean dented in so deep it took seconds for the water to torrent up.

So close, Vrabazard was one and all sharpness. In the distance of Filia's dreams, e had been a clunky thing, but in the real world e had a more slender form and a double set of wings. A row of teeth started at hir chin and went down hir neck. Inside was raw fire, fueling the lines of hir wings like Valwin had a mane of silver.

With every moment, the projection flashed and twitched. E was utterly blind, hir reliance on projected eyes the only reason Luna could shoot up a few hundred meters.

Right on her trail, Vrabazard flared up. Heat scorched her right before e flickered away. When the projection returned, it was with hir jaws shut around them.

Broken flow cut through Luna's own wings and bones.

Losing flight, Luna and Lyos smashed down onto rock solid plate.

Vrabazard had no tongue, just a cracked bone. Now e stayed still, not flickering once. Down the throat was nothing but flames and unwrenchable teeth on the other side.

In here, the flow was less distorted. Encroaching through their aura was Vrabazard's will. It took the god all his effort to focus in this twisted form, but he came closer to the edge of her soul gate.

Without making the circle herself she couldn't pin point a physical location to the gate, but she sensed in in ever fibre of her soul.

She could sense back, however, and find Volphied's work.

The other world might not have an astral plane, but it had a flow that could contain code that prompted movement — spells of this world could not compete with its complexity. It didn't just pull, it rewrote. A virus meant to steer towards the pillar. Without pillar, there was no flowing anywhere, except into other souls.

"E's going to absorb us," Luna whispered. "Lyos?"

She might not have spotted him if he hadn't worn a white coat, which dimly reflected in the fire down the god's throat. Luna couldn't project in here, but she could walk. She stumbled to Lyos, who lay with his cursed side up.

While snatching away new snakes, she shook him until he groaned.

"Luna? Where are we?"

She pulled him on his knees. "God ate us, we need out. Let's try together."

"Can't use ... wait, he's trying to absorb ... Luna, whatever you did with Valwin, do it again."

"We're not near enough the main core to get an effect," she said, right as Vrabazard scratched open the gate of her soul. Siephied power within responded.

"Do it anyway! I know what I'm asking."

Better than nothing. Keeping one hand on Lyos's arm, she set down the other on the jaw.

A shaky circle of her own opened. Lyos lurched forward, driving his cursed arm throughit.

Two things happened instantaneous : Lyos lost his arm to the flow of Vrabazard, and the entire lower jaw burst into warped flesh. The snakes it sprouted were tongues of flame and the stench of scorched flesh filled the air. The air became toxic, but the spiritual attack stopped.

Right below them, where the spell had been, a bright crack appeared. She pulled Lyos back just before it broke open.

With everything being darkness and fire, Luna didn't recognize the light as an arm and a head. Clawing at the flesh, Zelas tore herself through, saw them and pulled them out.

They fell into the sea, almost submerging, but Zelas got her wings out in time. Her formed turned eight fold, so she could hold Luna and Lyos in one hand.

Vrabazard trashed above them, like hir jaw was stuck in place. Wilder and wilder, e tore of the jaw, which disintegrated like dust.

Zelas raced off, close over the water and away from the island, not stopping until Vrabazard's roars were distant.

Luna grabbed Lyos and would have shot into the sea the moment Zelas looked back, but a golden glow surrounded them.

Within a bright blink, the scenery changed. Before Luna could even hook up to the next flow, she heard the bickering.

"Are we supposed to be  _this_  far away?" Xelloss asked.

"I've told you time and time again that I cannot teleport properly in environments I cannot envision and there is. no. proper. flow. here," Filia snapped.

Okay, that was so wrong, it took her four seconds to realize that Zelas wasn't even here.

Luna and Lyos were seated on Filia's back under a shield. Xelloss sat ahead, right at Filia's neck. Her flight kept the island and the gods to their left.

"What the ... " Lyos muttered. "What are you two doing here?"

"Great question," Luna said. "You're supposed to be distracting Xelloss, Filia. Not have fun."

With those words, she pulled in their emotions.

Xelloss in doubt, concern and conflict with himself; Filia in the same heartbreak as before, but now with that slim determination grow out to fierce, cold drive.

"I am not having fun! I am however going to try sending you a vision. Please open your soul window a little."

Well, she had nothing to lose. Prying open her soul circle a little, she reached for Filia. Almost at once, a dump of information flooded her mind. When she processed it, she made out a story.

_Xelloss had talked at long last, and that set up Zelas to talk too._

_At the very least, Xelloss believed they acted in compliance with will of the Lord of Nightmares, who favored existence. For the Wolfpack, that meant the world. For Filia, the fact they were being fully honest for once meant roughly a peninsula. Relevant, but not the end all._

_The Lord of Nightmares was named Lucifer, by the way, and she had put Siephied back in the world, but more about that later._

_In a few years time, Lina would indeed have returned with the talismans from other worlds, thus upping her potential control. The machine was to serve as both a holder and reformater. Zelas, Claire and Lina were the three stake holders, while Rangort was led along, and Claire had needed some time to come around._

_All three wanted to destroy Shabranigdu, and give different souls to the devils so they'd change and no longer want to end the world. Giving a devil a mortal soul wasn't a guarantee they would change, but then again, not having a mortal soul was no guarantee a devil would not change. They just rigged things in their favor._

_Zelas wanted to claim the existing devil power, Claire wanted the god power._ _Luna had never been intended to become a full out chimera. It was a side effect to the machine being activated at the wrong time, by people who did not understand it. If anything, Lina probably would not want Luna to be part of the emulgation of godly power._

_Lina's goals were vague, and Filia had a hefty dose of cynicism now, but also a promise :_

_Filia would not let Luna die. She was gone far enough not to care what became of Vrabazard and the other two gods, but nobody else. If people died, it had to have purpose._

_As the intended channels of Siephied, she could shut it down if they did anything she didn't like._

"... okay then," Luna said. "Still, Lyos is ..."

What, exactly? She barely knew him. If Filia was in a key position, and knew what would happen, and could shut it down ... that left Lyos with the pretty solid argument that they kinda did need a decent god, if nothing else.

"You were right that the sacrifice Valgarv asked of me is senseless," Filia said. "It is senseless because sacrifice is not inherently noble, right? In itself it does no good. It is not inherently vile either, though. What mister Lyos is about to do will allow many lives to be saved."

"I've been telling her that," Lyos said. "She won't listen."

"Miss Luna, is operation  _Save Lyos_  some misguided attempt at doing the right thing, or are you just afraid for yourself?" Filia asked.

_Maybe both._

"Just because they say it doesn't mean it's true. Zelas can just order Xelloss to lie."

"An order doesn't make him a good actor," Filia said, which prompted Xelloss to huff.

"Anyway," he said, "it's easy to get a better source, miss Luna. May I see the talisman, to summon miss Lina?"

"Yeah, let's have an existential debate in the middle of a battlefield. Fancy golden sunrise, screams of death, the fate of the world at stake. Ooh, I should try turning seawater into wine."

Xelloss opened one eye and just smiled in the most obnoxious way. He held out his hand for the talisman. "Come now, miss Luna. My liege the Beast Monarch is back there, distracting the gods while we talk. You've got mister Lyos, there's nothing to lose."

It was difficult to see from here, but Vrabazard seemed to chase Zelas, though e got stock on the curse every so other second. Xelloss worried anyway, despite his stiff smiling.

Zelas  _could_  catch up, but given the way her fight went ... not likely. Zelas survived because Vrabazard was blinded and infected, and she kept him from the island, but that took all of her.

Oh, what the hell.

Luna projected a claw and flicked Xelloss off of Filia's back. Then she tossed Lyos up, projected a massive dragon skull and encased him in it. Startled, Filia swayed in her flight, but Luna jumped off in time and landed on her skull.

"Okay then. We'll talk, but on my terms."

Filia settled on the skull too; it was a little too small for her to sit on, but she could hang off it. From her subspace, she conjured the angelsblood sliver.

"Here, miss Luna. Once Xelloss has done whatever he does to contact miss Lina, you can run a test."

Luna took the sliver and put it back into her clasp. Through those, she kept it active as a control item. Then she held out the greater shard to Xelloss.

He put the tip of his finger on it, causing a surge of power unlike Luna could name. It went through the walls of the world and for a moment, she felt the fabric of reality.

The projection around his finger cracked; he wasn't in his element using holiness. The connection almost broke, but Luna copied it and held on. The talisman floated between them, held by Luna's power but controlled by Xelloss.

On the other end, radiant gold passed the worlds.

Luna felt she had to do something to pull her closer, but didn't know what. Xelloss did it for her.

In a cloud of dusty gold, Lina burst from the talisman, spectral and shiny in a way Luna would swear was for effect.

"You better have a good reason to interrupt my sleep," Lina said, scratching the back of her head. She wore a simple shirt and strange pants, like she'd just popped out of bed. Sloppy as ever, though she wore bracelets and a belt with talismans.

Okay, maybe not for effect.

Lina's weary expression changed to cold when she took a closer look.

Luna wasn't used to a Lina who did not cower before her.

"What is  _she_  doing here?" The sound held contempt, but above all, dismissal. "Wait, never mind. Xelloss, Tel al-Metaliom."

"It's called Har Megiddo now, but yes, I understand."

"Elmegiddo," Lyos hollered from below. "Hey, Lina, get your ass back in this world."

"Okay, enough! Why is Luna here and why are you all in the middle of the sky above the—why the hell is the pillar on? And why is Lyos in your skull?"

"Well, that's a very funny story." All of Xelloss's fingers went up for a count down and he continued, "Valgarv is back. He probably stirred up the war, manipulated all of us and now controls two pieces of Shabranigdu. Valgarv's still planning to remake the world and had both talismans, but we have one back now. Unfortunately, miss Claire decided to be communicative with the dragons in an effort to up their survival chances or something like that, miss Luna wanted to either kidnap Lyos, tell Earthlord Rangort everything or destroy the island. It's rather poorly planned, and we just intercepted her. Miss Filia told miss Luna the plot but she may need some further prompting to, you know, not snitch us out to the wrong gods."

Lina had half a grin in sheer disbelief. "I can't let you people out my sight for just a few years, can I? Why is Valgarv back? What the hell is going on?"

Xelloss fell silent and looked at Luna and Filia. When Filia hesitated, Luna said, "Val was fake. He hid within his soul and steered Val through it. He's an agent of Volphied, but her drone is gone and he's operating on his own now."

She'd meant to keep it formal, but it got a fresh wave of pain from Filia regardless.

Lina caught on too and quickly changed the topic, "And I'm taking it there's a funny story like that about why Vrabazard and Valwin are twitching over the horizon?"

"They have been cut from the flow and gone a little mad as a side effect is misaimed pillar," Xelloss chirped. "Rangort's affected too, but not as badly as them. Oh, and speaking of ill gods, mister Lyos is affected by a partial Raugnut Rushavna. Though, he seems to have lost some of that to Vrabazard. See, miss Luna drew them in for whatever she wanted to do."

"Right." Now Lina really looked at her, and she was nothing like the frightened girl Lina had forged. For a moment Lina was nothing, least of all human.

Lina closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose, sunk in thought. "And why, exactly? You want to be control? Did anyone offend you? Or is Lyos your new pet?"

"I don't do pets anymore."

"Oh really? Doesn't sound like it."

"... he's being someone else's pet. Holy power influences people to agree. I did it to Filia without meaning to, but Claire's doing it to Lyos intentionally."

"Bullshit," Lina said. "Claire was too weak and far away three years ago. We're not forcing him."

"Ridiculous? I've only been collared, sent half across the world on false pretenses to serve as  _brewing pot_  and there's a machine that fucks up my body and can make me go where i don't want. It shuts down my free will. Then I learn what the machine does," Luna snapped. "Taking that lying down would be ridiculous!"

"For the record, she learned it from Valgarv," Xelloss just had to add, the bastard.

"Valgarv lies as he breathes, Luna," Lina said. "He's been lying since the moment I met him! Why did you listen to him?"

"There have been a few unfortunate incidents that might conspire with miss Luna learning certain truths," Filia sneered.

"Whatever. Luna always does this, it's always about how she wants everything in  _her_  order. I'm surprised she hasn't tortured any of you. Come on Luna, where's the smirking and rage? Or is the cold shoulder your new tactic? Say something!"

"You could tell me what you want to hear, but I guess that ruins the effect, hmm?" Luna said.

"Very funny. Let Lyos go."

As grudgingly as Luna had to admit it, there wasn't any real reason to stop it now. She wasn't on the plate for sacrifice, so a revived god wasn't a threat to was pragmatic and didn't care for retribution or morality. Filia  _would_ set down her foot and refuse to do anything that Luna didn't want done to her. Luna didn't know Lyos well enough to really miss him, and with Valgarv out and about, ...

... she just didn't like the idea that maybe, Lyos didn't do it for the reasons she deemed right.

Right on cue, Filia said, "Miss Luna, you had a point about senseless sacrifice, but this is mister Lyos's choice. People will die unless we get the gods back in order. To have a chance at that, we need Ragradia."

Those were the reasons a great deal of others deemed right. Luna couldn't pretend to feel for faceless numbers, or maybe she did and cut it away. She would like the world back in order, though, and so ...

"Yeah yeah, been over that already. Lina, are you sure there's no way to not, y'know, do human sacrifice?"

"I was planning on looking into that from the moment it came up, but back then I didn't know we'd have rampaging gods while I'm stuck three worlds from home," Lina snapped, one thumb at the mess to their left.

"Are you even gonna be able to do this so far away?" Luna asked, oddly hollow. There wasn't anything left to feel.

"We won't know till we try," Lina said, showing her first smile. "Are you going to be one of my obstacles? Go on, give us an excuse to get rid of you."

Luna said nothing. Without her fury and ego, she had bare little to run on.

"Miss Lina, please don't. You can trust miss Luna on this. She's already backed down."

"The hell, Filia? How would you even know?"

"She promised me she'd try changing, and she's talking about options now, isn't she?"

Lina gave her a skeptical look, so Luna decided to talk, even if she didn't know what to say. "Filia's got some idea on me, I guess. We did a lot of dream sharing. I'll do it. I'll help you kill and revive gods, as long as I'm kept out of the results."

She let Lyos out, who climbed on her projection and kicked her. Hard. Astrally. With his arm missing, the curse covered less area and he had more of a mind on using his powers. Luna had to clench down the urge to rip off his other arm. Zelas could manage to hold in her rage, so could she.

"Hey, Lyos," Lina said. "I'd ask how you're doing, but I can see."

"I'm actually kinda better than before. Damn, I should have ripped off my arm earlier. What about you?"

"I'm the queen of witches here and I married the heir of the Gabriev family and the heir to the throne of Sailoon. I'm in a world that recognizes my genius and I have awesome powers. A bit low on the fortune, but working on that."

Wait. Waaaait. "You married  _two_ people?"

Xelloss scraped his throat. "May we discuss the legality of polyamory later? The sooner we revive the Aqualord, the sooner Vrabazard will stop trying to kill my liege."

"We may," Luna said, more cheeky than was appropriate.

Xelloss snatched the talisman from midair and returned to his spot behind Filia's neck, the spectral Lina at his side.

"Luna, why don't you go meet miss Claire" Xelloss said.

"Is that a good idea?" Lina asked.

"Miss Luna won't abduct her too. Not now. Besides, miss Leyunso's around," Filia said, and then to Luna, "Be safe."

With that, Lina didn't grant Luna another look. Filia left her with detail on where Claire had last been seen and took off. Xelloss made a show of waving.

Some hundred miles from the island, Rangort had created a set of sky islands, which looked like smooth platforms from a distance but were more crude up close.

Luna had to look around, but soon found the right island. Maybe few hundred meters wide, most dragons here were the kind that could take human form. Claire was in their center, behind a barrier as she healed those that got injured by stray holy power.

Three angels were here, who went on high alert as they spotted her.

"Chill out," Luna said. "I tried to get Lyos away from Zelas, that's all, but it turns out she's on our side. The shit in hell was a big misunderstanding, blablabla, I'm going to see Claire."

Not waiting for an answer, Luna flicked one aside and easily dodged the other two, walked through the barriers, and tapped Claire on the shoulder.

Right now she had her middle aged form, most convenient for healing. Her patient looked up, but Claire didn't. "I have better things to do right now."

"For the record, I'm on your side now."

"I witnessed," Claire said. "A group of dragons has gone ahead to secure the island already, I am not done healing and you shall wait."

"Or I could just grab you and go ahead right now."

Claire smiled. "I'm fairly confident that should you try anything, I can undermine you. After all, I know how to open your soul gate."

Luna hoped she wasn't going to regret agreeing to Claire's plan to mindwalk Val.

"Shrink, you'll be easier to carry," Luna said.

Claire said shook her head. "No, I'll go with my dragons, thank you."

"Then why am—"

"How about another battle?" someone asked.

A darkskinned woman, bright clothed and with red dreadlocks stood behind her.

"I am here," the woman said.

Luna frowned. It sounded like a lie to her human ears, but through her astral perception she picked up nothing like that. Just a bland statement.

Her astral perception was more overwhelming than her meager physical senses, and pushed away the odd suggestion of a lie.

"Yeah, obviously you're here."

The woman lit up in a wide smile. "Oh my, I found  _another_  cheat code."

When Leyunso stepped forward and covered Luna's ears, Luna would've batted her away ... if not for the odd sensation something good happened. Being near her was overwhelmingly pleasant; it dulled little astral aches Luna had never known could be shut down.

"Listen only with your astral body. There is a curse on my words that means people cannot believe what I claim, but you won't fall for them."

Luna nodded numbly, projected something to block sound off her own ears, and the woman stepped back.

"Hello, you may call me Leyunso. I am known as the Sage of Siephied, and I once was Siephied itself."

That should have startled her, but Luna just nodded. It felt like the most natural answer in the world.

Leyunso signed her to step aside from the camp. Though under many eyes, Luna followed.

Once relatively alone, Siephied said, "You can leave Claire's safety to the dragons. Lyos is on shore already, he will keep her safe amid the devils and the cult. Now, Zelas cannot know I exist. I once, ahem, brainwashed her. It was convenient at the time, but now it is not, and I cannot take it back. She knows the Lord of Nightmares favors existence since a few thousand years, but can never put her finger on why," Leyunso said.

"And your point is?"

"She is on our side, don't you see? I'd like your help in carrying out my parental duties, and I need her for it."

"Not sure I wanna. I already saved Zelas today, or yesterday, not sure about timezones anymore. Anyway, quota met. If she dies here, good riddance. As long as Valgarv doesn't get her."

"She needs to control the machine."

Luna groaned. Zelas was one hell of a complication, getting rid of her would be the best solution but there just kept being reasons  _not to_.

"Sounds wonderful, let's do it."

That made Leyunso snicker, right as it hit Luna. Leyunso would be bound to speak saying the opposite of what she meant.

"How do you usually speak with people?"

Leyunso just kept smiling and turned away.

"Are you somehow influencing me?"

"Not intentionally, but who knows? I never did pay much attention to you. People with the emotional maturity of a toddler aren't compelling at all." She sighed in bliss. "Though now I realize how great talking without word tricks is, I might put up with you."

Luna's telltale anger boiled up, but she met it with mistrust exactly because Leyunso had alluded to her emotional mutilation.

So instead of lashing out, and holding onto a promise to try better, she asked in an even voice, "How much ... how much emotions am I cutting away from myself?"

"A lot. You're the most quiet identity crisis I've ever seen. Don't stop now, we don't need you to destabilize either."

"Would I be?" Luna asked.

"It's hard to say whether it would be  _you_."

Luna thought about that, realized she could care, and put in a corner of her mind for later. "Okay, let's go rack up Zelas's debt to me."

**· · · · · · ·**


	34. Zelas's Distractions

**· · · · · · ·**

The gods had spent the last six thousand years consuming positive emotions without having to share, never turning it into armies the way the devil clan did. Vrabazard was so much more powerful than her, his only hindrance being his disconnect with the flow.

Zelas blocked and dodged, keeping her form small, exploiting his poor experience with aiming by eyesight. With no hope of defeating him, her best shot was escape.

At least, until Vrabazard figured that since e couldn't hit her with an aim, e might as well scorch the entire area.

E breathed out a spiral of fire that covered the area on both planes. The blaze singed her and she shot up, into the cloudcover

Vrabazard plowed through, only to be met by Zelas's charge. She bore her sword into one of the eyes and tried burning the other out with her own blue fire, but Vrabazard shook her off and flared out hir wings.

She folded her wings around herself to protect against the inferno. Gravity helped her down, sheering past Vrabazard to dive into the sea.

The water only obscured her for the moments it took to boil away under the fire god's heat.

One thing saved her, and that was the mutations taking over the god. The eyes grew back wrong.

Just as Zelas tried to spin that to her advantage, Luna flew by with Leyunso in one of her projected claws.

Diving right at the god, she dropped Leyunso near a mutating part. Careful not to harm the Sage, Luna burned away the malformed snakes trying to emerge. Growing from a god only made them out of fire that incinerated themselves, but the flare was dangerous to humans.

Leyunso held on till she found a solid spot to crawl into, at which point Luna hurled herself away. Vrabazard spun around with hir other eye, but she remained clear. Zelas followed her lead. When Luna noticed her, she swooped around and covered Zelas's ears. Astrally she folded a thin holy field around her. Both ways to hear were obscured.

Leyunso said something to Vrabazard, who turned away, searching in any direction not this.

Rather than let go, Luna leaned to her right ear.

"Hey, Zelas. Guess what, I'm on your side now," Luna said, so smug she astrally dripped. "Who would have thought that giving me the full story would do that? I, the  _loyal_ servant of the gods who  _worships_ their every move, who would never do  _anything_  to harm them. Gods, so unreal, no?"

She had expected Xelloss and Filia to give Lyos the upper hand and detain Luna, not this.

Zelas shook her off. "And pray tell, what caused this change?"

Up close, Luna looked more mortal again, but the thing on the astral plane now moved in tandem with her more than ever before. Every word Luna said had a heavy, inhuman undertone.

"My priest got your priest to talk. Met my little sister and know my fate," Luna said before raising her sword. "That and we need you to operate the damn machine."

Looking where the sword pointed, Rangort hurled towards them at terrifying speed. Valwin had been shaking off somewhere beyond the island.

"Oh look, a volunteer for keeping Vrabazard occupied," Luna said. She shot back at Vrabazard, vanished from sight.

Vrabazard spun towards Rangort, locked sight and went for Rangort. Shortly after, Luna returned with Leyunso, whom she set on Zelas's back.

Then she dared to kick Zelas in the neck.

"You foul little—"

"Yeah, yeah. Look, I'm gonna be busy getting these gods to fight, you take care of our, ehm, mutual ally. Go make sure we can summon Lina back."

The gods were already on course, she didn't want to be there when that happened. How Luna planned to survive kindling their aggression against each other ... no, no time.

Zelas flew to the beach without looking back. Leyunso held on tight, and didn't speak.

Gathered on the beach were elves, dragons and Sailoon soldiers. Amelia argued with Milgazia, one in a loud voice, the other dreary and drawn out. She had expected to see Xelloss and the dragons with him, but they were nowhere to be seen.

Without ceremony, Zelas dropped down in full form. Leyunso jumped off, ran up to Milgazia and whispered something in his ear, then darted off inside.

To Amelia, Zelas said, "I still seek the rebirth of Ragradia. What will you do?"

"What's best for justice, of course. I happened to notice your devils aren't attacking ours, but Milgazia doesn't think it's worth the effort to make Ospirias stop attacking them."

That her devils weren't hostile right now didn't mean they were allies, but Zelas didn't look given horses in the mouth.

"I don't know what possessed me, but I actually do believe you are right," Milgazia said. "Me and my people will do as you suggested, but I am afraid we do not know to recognize which devils are hostile."

A beat for Amelia, and a moment of quiet terror for Zelas — Leyunso's influence would never not disturb her.

"Ehm, I think Zelas can tell you," Amelia said. "Is Azonge gonna agree, though?"

Leyunso gave an all too serene smile, and only Zelas noticed.

"He will have to," Milgazia said. "What's going on over there?"

Across the sea, the gods collided, froze for a moment, then decided they were enemies. A bright star shot away from them; Luna in full firepower.

Luna dropped onto the beach with a smug grin and struggling gods far behind her. Zelas swore she did it to make an impact, which worked for the lesser beings around them.

"Why aren't we in yet?" Luna asked, looking right at Leyunso, who didn't answer but slipped into the nearest tunnel.

The battle between Dalphins's devils and cult versus the invaders had drawn close to the center. Milgazia explained they'd feigned a weaker invasion first, using only dragons in human form and elves. To the devils it made sense that this was the best dragons could send, since not all dragons could transform to fit into the small halls. They had sent their stronger ones to deal with them, at which point the Sailoon forces had been brought in; small distance teleportation could be done relatively safe.

The stronger out of the way, the risk of any of them destroying the machine diminished, but they still had to hurry. Hurrying didn't work very well when half the dragon soldiers picked fight with Zelas's troops while Dalphin's soldiers and cult human slipped away.

If Milgazia couldn't command them to stand down and she couldn't threaten Ospirias, and killing dragons wasn't any option if anyone would take her serious, she was in even more trouble. At least Lyos and Claire were in position, kept secure by Lyos's power and some woman on a Zanaffar.

Zelas poured more power into her projection and dealt with the moronic dragons by means of broken wings. It was slow and painful, as she took several laserbreaths, and withdrawing to the astral plane was trickier this way.

Closer to the center of the machine, they met a cluster of frantic magicians trying to fend off anyone from the control blocks.

The elves went ahead, most mobile in their Zenaffa armors. The Sailoonians were close behind, no doubt having careless treatment of humans in mind.

Zelas let them deal with that and projected herself full form in the middle of the gigantic hall. Any enemy devil that recognized her fled at the sight. Intimidation was much easier than picking them off one by one.

The elves chased the lower ranked devils while the Sailoonians tried dealing with the humans as nicely as they could — pacifists punches instead of incineration, of course.

Once the floor was cleared, Zelas expected to have to convince anyone she meant to let Ragradia reincarnate without issue, so far. There was no need; somewhere in the chaos Leyunso had found Azonge and now had her sights on Ospirias, who came barged in with all the pompous zeal of the west. Zelas didn't hear what she said to him, but all that zeal got redirected to stopping the infighting of the Wolfpack and his dragons. He himself chastised anyone of rank for not informing him of the new state of plans.

It didn't take long after those orders were out for the key players to appear. They'd gone ahead, but carefully due to Lyos's poor state. Zelas half suspected Filia had insisted on breaking of the wrong fights, because she sported her mace and a few new bruises.

Getting everyone arranged on the platform passed in painful silence. Ospirias's ravings died down, and there was little else to say when all dragon generals and a few elves had just been spoken to be Leyunso. Zelas wondered whether she could leave quick enough, if Leyunso spoke to her. Luna meanwhile stood by, the only one in this place even close to being amused.

Without a word, Filia helped Lyos onto the platform. Lina's reflection wasn't around. Xelloss took his place there too, and spoke softly with Claire. He looked and felt worried.

"What is the matter?" Zelas asked.

Almost at once, Claire said, "Valwin's coming this way. Rangort's still fighting Vrabazard, but we need to put Valwin somewhere right now. E's vaporizing the water, and an awful lot of people here are mostly that element."

"This god's pretty simple," Filia said. "We may be able to speak rather than imprison."

"Are you sure?" Luna asked from the side. "Valwin seemed pretty irritated when I brought'em here already, and more so now. Though, we did cut off a piece of hir and e didn't even care to find out what happened ... hmm."

"We can draw him in with the pillar before we do anything with Ragradia," Zelas said. "Where is miss Orun?"

"I know where, but why?" Claire said.

"That fragment of power from Valwin, if I am not mistaken, miss Orun has it now? It was meant to navigate and flow, she may be able to use that to connect to the god when close enough."

"I'll go fetch her," Luna said, to Zelas's surprise.

Claire gave Luna directions to correct hall; the woman had been in the rearguard. Luna returned with her just as the island got its first tremors from the approaching god.

Zelas landed before her.

"Miss Orun, Valwin is susceptible to take the forms imagined by those e interacts with. You should be able to push an impression on in this process. Ensure it is a form condensed enough to be out of our way," Zelas said to her, assuming Luna had briefed her in.

"I understand," Orun said.

Lyos and Claire waited at the side of the wide platform while Orun went to the center. Zelas took position at the control panels, set the pillar to pull and

The pillar was already activated, albeit dim, presumably because the cult had been experimenting with it. Now the light turned bright at once, but care had to be given. It took nearly a minute to ensure that only the signature of Valwin was called in, not the other two. Orun had to steer it, which left Zelas unseeing of its success.

Her first sign it worked was Orun's sharp intake of breath.

With a sudden burst of silver wind, Valwin twisted into the hall from above. Like a moth to flame, the god drew closed to the pillar's core, only to find nothing there and be confused why e even came.

Though nervous, Orun did not hesitate to approach. The wind turned to her first, then the dragon's massive head.

Zelas could not perceive anything of the connection between them — a whole world kept from her.

When the twists of the dragon lessened, Zelas loosened the hold of the pillar a little. Valwin poured down around Orun, but didn't harm her. Good, Valwin saw her now.

The god fell into a mere human form, one without clear gender as Rangort was wont to take. E had many similarities to Orun's people; brown skin and simple clothes with colorful patterns and a long headdress with sleek feathers. The form had something of nobility, which Zelas did not think befit the careless god. It better not mean Orun had the wrong expectations, rather than some obscure cultural meaning.

Orun did not bow, did not revere the god in any way. She just took hir hand, whispered a few words and pulled hir along. Zelas turned off the pillar, but kept her focus on the two.

Valwin looked around, cautious and on high alert, but made no move to attack. His lips moved without producing sound. Still, Orun responded; now her words were quiet too.

Claire took her middle aged form and approached Valwin.

"You'll have your evidence right now," she said.

Valwin nodded. And that was all, or perhaps something had passed that she could not witness.

This probably meant the god wasn't about to go trash things into pieces. Zelas waited to see whether anything else happened. Valwin hardly paid attention to anything; more occupied with learning how to plant feet on the ground than the mechanics of the machine.

Xelloss cast her a look, and she nodded.

"Let's get everything in place now, shall we? I doubt the other gods will be so communicative."

"I may not be communicative for long, either," Valwin said, more to Claire than anyone else.

Xelloss and Filia had been instructed before they left the island, and Claire caught Lyos up. Anyone else wasn't relevant.

Withdrawing her projection, Zelas became a connection right within the machine itself. It was reliance on outside force, but with a god looming nearby she had some leeway in what harmed her ego.

The green light flickered on and the earth groaned. The ray shot up from the walls and from the center platform, right through the walls of the world this time. From here on, she would have to leave it to Xelloss. He again activated the talisman, while Claire and Lyos went to the center of the platform.

Assuming there wouldn't be unexpected things, Lina Inverse would be called back any moment now.

It wouldn't be the Red World if everything could be expected.

The program reeled. They didn't notice anything, but Zelas did.

Something reached through the rift they had created and the machine pushed the power further. The sensation of another side announced itself, a world that had no astral plane, but something else ... a great deal of pain there ...

Something began downloading itself. Frantic, Zelas shut down the main program, but it wouldn't stop.

Old fashioned way, then. She reached through the material, projecting a hand straight into the core that handled the wireless connection and busted it.

Fanning out her essence, she took over various functions of the machine.

To Xelloss and Claire, she said in a whisper, "What can you sense?"

"The Black World," Claire said, her hand clutching Lyos's arm. "Don't let it in. Godly matters."

On the side of the platform, Valwin's projection didn't move, but did disappear for seconds at a time. It was Luna's power that flickered and flared far more.

"Volphied," Luna whispered at first, but her voice rose to a scream right after. "Stop it! Volphied's trying to get in!"

Wasting no time, Zelas reached down the roots to the captured beings that provided the energy, forcing them to lower output.

The pillar weakened to just grazing the Ragnarok. The pull stopped, but she had to cut a few more connections before everything was back to normal.

"What happened?" Xelloss asked.

"I cannot bring back miss Lina," Zelas said to him, loud enough that it everyone in the hall could hear. "If we go beyond the world walls, Volphied will try again. Xelloss, bring miss Lina here by remote projection."

That was easy enough.

"Hey, what's going on?" Lina asked when she faded in. "We got all packed and nothing happened!"

Xelloss pointed up a finger and happily announced, "Volphied's trying to hijack the machine if we breach the world wall."

"It's rather inconvenient," Claire said with similar mismatched ease. "I suppose if we could harvest Valgarv's mind we might find out how to run the machine right, but alas. Miss Lina, can you attempt to recreate us as Aqualord across the distance?"

Lina scratched her head, or tore hair in frustration, it was hard to perceive in Zelas's dissolved state. "I suppose I can try. Y'know, Zelas was right about me walking in the footsteps of chaos so I think I can cheat a little if Lyos and— who's that weird guy with the feather hat?"

Valwin had stepped onto the platform, eyes unfocused; Orun seemed to see for him. "Are you truly Lina Inverse?"

"Pretty much," Lina said. "What are you doing in that form?"

"Waiting to see what unfolds with this island."

"The gods aren't well, Vrabazard is still out there fight Rangort," Orun said.

Lina floated closer to Valwin and poked a golden finger on his forehead. "There, can you tell what I am now?"

He jerked back, but nodded. "You are the Apostle."

If Zelas had had a physical body right now, she'd flared in joy — the gods also knew. The rumor must be true.

"Zelas's plot here is Rangort's plot too," Orun said to Valwin. "There were misunderstandings, but we're here to rebirth the Aqualord."

"Got her over there," Lina said, pointing behind her. "Valwin, how about you go stall the gods out there while I work?"

"Without full projection I cannot do much, and full projection would interfere with this area," e said. "But I can deflect some things, I suppose."

"Good. Orun, take him where he's needed."

Lyos didn't sit down right away, he put a hand Orun's shoulder first, whispered something and only then sat down; as if they had time. Orun didn't look back as she led Valwin out.

Lina cracked her fingers and said, "Xelloss, Filia, one big fat serving of Phied and Igdu power. Now. Claire, fly Lyos up a little."

Claire turned to her middle form and grew wings with tail to lift Lyos. Up they went by a hundred meters or so, while Lina's projection stayed right below.

Filia raised her arms and Xelloss let out Shabranigdu's power.

On the astral plane these forces looked like shredded paper that rivers flowed into, Xelloss moreso than the dragon. He hollowed out to give way for the energy — she'd seen it before, but not so close.

A set of magical circled, stacked with some space, circled into existence between the triad. Lina's ghostly form expanded and arranged them as she desired, led by her hands in complicated forms.

At last, she clapped her hands together. On this sound the fusion turned to threat, then to veil, then to all encompassing haze. It caught all the godly energy at her command. Everything pulled together into nothing, only to return as gold.

No attack it was, but rather expansion, almost soft.

This became the egg of the god.

In the middle of this, Lina chanted :

_"Lords of the Darkness and the Light of these Worlds,_

_Following thy bonds of fate; Merge all thy strength,_

_Grant unto me greater power!"_

Zelas had no more room for doubt now. The Apostle of Chaos existed.

It could drive her mad, this feeling. Maybe this was what Phibrizzo had hoped to achieve when the world ended — she could no longer remember what she had strived for once, when still a devil at Shabranigdu's intent.

Lina did not outright direct the gold, the way she had done the initial fusion. Rather, she swam along in its currents, and somethings against the stream.

Lyos died first, but his soul stayed with Claire. Blue light leaked all around them until nothing humanoid remained, and a mirage of a twisted blue dragon filled the hall.

"Do you want to ..." Filia asked, her voice so small none would hear except those close, or with wolf's ears.

Claire laid her claw tops on Filia's hand, and said, "Yes, let me remember."

Zelas activated the pull of the pillar and hoped what she'd just heard would not be a problem.

Lina formed a sword of energy in her hands, akin to the Ragna Blade, but golden.

Claire died next.

The Ragnarok thinned and split with the unfolding of the spire. In its light, Lina's ghostly form become near solid gold.

The vacuum between worlds was their hold on the godly power, the inversion of the flow hooked onto it to tempt in the deities. Something within the pillar had a command right to the mind, which Zelas could not understand but had once assumed to be Lina's chaotic doing. Maybe it had been Volphied all along, but Lina was the Apostle of Chaos. She should be.

Tendrils of black and light wove around the blue power, cutting and drawing it back together. The light shrank, vaporised, and passed into the nothing before creation once more. Silence passed for seconds, then the black and white reemerged into pure gold. Raw creation, colored like the sea of Chaos. The eternal beginning.

This became the god within the egg.

Simple like a candle flickering awake, yet infinitately out of Zelas's reach. She could only observe as structure and form sprung from nothing.

An astral's soul has no eternity like those born from Megiddo, for it is the soul itself that bears the marks of identity. Until the demise of Ragradia, it had been insubstantial a concept to Zelas, which bore her a wish to see.

Only Lina Inverse was left in the gold, commanding chaos without even a hint of  _what_  she did, let alone how.

Zelas could learned nothing from this, yet Xelloss watched, entranced, smirking like he did when he saw wicked power. He had experimented with soul gates and life law, twice now. Had that given him anything that Zelas lacked? She'd have to ask, but that didn't allow her to see now it mattered.

The pillar turned brighter and the gateway opened without bridging worlds. Within the hollow, on the flow of chaos itself, a blue light unfolded. At intervals, the outlines of life law circles could be seen. The walls of the worlds contracted with every cycle.

Over time the motion diminished into a steady eb and tide. When all became still, the single blue light remained. Small at first, it pulsed wider until it became a stream around its own core.

Coils unwound into a serpentine dragon with seven leathery light wings. The same blues and greens as before, but she had scaled patterns across her sapphire back, the colors on her wings mingled like dawn, and the weak jaw made way for a dense row of teeth. The new god had the aura of a saint and the look of a predator, beautiful even to Zelas.

Ragradia shot to the sky, out of the open ceiling. Almost at once, the noise and tension outside vanished. Only the underside of Ragradia was visible for a moment, but the change in atmosphere could tell everyone, even the weakest sensor, the tide of the gods had turned.

High tones like whale song echoed down combined with the hollow wails of Valwin, soon joined by the lower rumble of Rangort. Vrabazard's bestial roar joined in last.

On the platform below, Xelloss and Filia were on their knees, exhausted but whole despite the devastating magic. Lina floated over them, speaking to them of nothing important, almost jest and joke. Zelas shifted over, hoping to speak with Lina, but was denied. Lina vanished after yawning in a most lax manner, mumbling about catching some sleep and Filia doing the same.

That was not very appropriate behavior for someone who had just revived a god and changed the fate of the world.

Luna sauntered up to them, hands behind her head as she looked up. A whistle escaped her.

"So, this god worth serving?" Luna asked Filia.

"That depends on what she does," Filia said. "I'll have to see it first, but I think I'll take up miss Lina's suggestion first. Are there any beds here?"

Oh, do be so casual about all this.

Zelas turned off the machine with no ceremony. The hall flocked empty as the holy clans flocked outside to observe their gods, most of them at least.

Filia and Luna didn't care to watch the gods, instead they went to a little side room that one of the Wolfpack reported had tea; the message had been for Xelloss but they took it.

Xelloss returned to Zelas and bowed before her. "It has been done, my liege."

"You did well," she said, as usual. Almost she asked what he could see that she did not, but he was in bad shape. Intense questioning could be fore later. "You may depart."

"Thank you, my liege."

And of course, he went to the same kitchen where the tea was, as well as the dragon ladies.

Zelas gathered up the remnants of her pack. Three sub leaders had died in the conflict, most of the others were injured. A handful had been attacked by "friendly" fire. There was no way to investigate who had done it when, without raising a fuss.

Her pack asked what to do now, and she told them to stay. Wolfpack Island was not safe anymore, though Elmegiddo didn't feel so either. Too much the sting of holiness. She asked them to endure. They would regrow their trees here and survive for now, it was time to rest.

Dilgear asked where Luna was, but only so he could avoid her. She sent him away as a scout.

Zelas could think of other things to do, but she had time.

Milgazia made his way to the kitchen. How curious. She drifted closer as a wolf, using natural eyesight and hearing to observe through the open door.

"I wonder what exactly makes you Siephied's channel," Xelloss said.

He got no answer, since Milgazia stepped in at that moment. Taking one look at Filia, he asked, "Why are you covered in blood?"

"Valgarv attacked me," Filia said. "I know what you're thinking, but this wasn't caused by the Wolfpack. Others things they did do, like not being able to provide me a decent replacement dress."

"Then why are you hiding the blood behind that cloak?"

"To avoid people jumping to the conclusions you just did!"

"I was there, I saw it, Valgarv did it," Luna said. "Wolfpack's not into mindless torture. I think. Anyway, Filia, why  _did_ you bleed from that attackl? Dabbling with the planes again?"

"Maybe. Don't mind it, I'm fine."

"Yeah, and I not rotting inside out," Luna said, reaching for Filia's stomach.

"Really, it's fine. I  _already am_ healing," Filia said. "I'll be fine after some sleep."

"But are you healing  _right_? Lemme try a trick."

"What trick?"

Luna jabbed her finger at where Xelloss, if he were organic, would have a rib cage. For the astral creatures that took a humanoid form, it was a focus area to control their projection.

A small life law circle spun open below her hand, and she pushed her hand through. Xelloss flinched, but didn't seem alarmed enough to step back.

"Huh. Green specks," Luna said. "Anyway, it's a trick to see the transition astral ... whatever, the fancy shit that makes your body move. The thing that Shadow Snap affects. It won't hurt."

Reluctantly, Filia allowed Luna to place a hand through her solar plexus.

"Yep, you're patching. Not a corpse like me though. Hey, Milgazia, do some standard healing."

Zelas perked up at the word corpse and the casual way Luna said it. Almost, she dropped in to remark on that, but stopped herself.

Milgazia cast the requested spell, but sitting behind her, with as much distance between him and Xelloss. And perhaps Luna too.

"I take that neither of you will explain me what you're doing?" Xelloss asked.

"Of course I will! I'm a highly gullible and naive person willing to share my vast bastions of knowledge," Luna chirped. "Speaking of gullible ..."

Luna stood straight and tapped Filia and Xelloss in the heads. "So, what did you do to get along again? Just spilling the beans can't have done that."

"I'm not really sure what happened," Xelloss said. "She didn't seem very impressed with what I told her."

"He did a priestly sermon on the nature of chaos, while in the form of a few hundred clattering cones," Filia said. "It was ridiculous, but the context mattered. At least he's talking now."

"You poor clown, so desperate you'd try being  _serious_?" Luna laughed and rubbed Xelloss on the head with one of her projected claws, like one would do to a dog.

As always, Xelloss just let the mortals do as they pleased; one thing he had not inherited from Zelas was a sense of regal dignity.

"Clowning aside, that can't be it. What's the context?" Milgazia asked.

Filia half turned. "There's power in holding the truth, and all your physical strength doesn't matter if you're living by a lie. Secrets are weakness in the shield. Say, did miss Claire get around to speaking with you yet?"

He didn't get around to answering, because Luna cut in. "Such philosophy. I gotta hear this in a dreamscape or something to see whether you've got sense below it. First your organs though. How's it going, Milgazia?"

The dragon tensed up when addressed. "Well, it was ... not severe, but strange. I have not dealt with such a disbalance before. It did not feel like an injury."

"It's all holy stuff, just the wrong kind," Luna said. "Ever saw anything like this with devil wounds?"

"No," he said. "If I may ask, what is it that happened? The area this wound is at and the kind of damage, it implies a spiritual attack meant for astral beings."

"You may ask but you may also not get an answer," Xelloss said through gritted teeth.

Luna shoved him. "No touchy with questions for me, unless you're volunteering to demonstrate it for Milgazia?"

Luna conjured up an astral lance, because sure why not, she learned all sorts of things all the time anyway.

Filia gave Luna a look. A needless look, as she knight made no move to throw the thing. She did dangle it awfully close to Xelloss, who considered whether or not he had to flee.

Zelas had the sense of standing outside. To Xelloss it had become natural to mingle with people like it was normal, but Zelas had no role to fit here. Nothing to say, input or add; would she go down there she would dominate the atmosphere regardless of her form and that bizarre ease would be gone.

The dragons would close up and the knight would go back on her subtle high alert. Zelas usually enjoyed the effect she had on people; less so now she knew that prickling the dragons might be her end.

Owing her life to dragons and knights wasn't so simple to place in her life, or her plans, or her philosophies.

From Filia to Xelloss, that came easy. Filia wouldn't kill him without a very good reason, and that reason would never be her own comfort. Creatures of mercy could be terribly useful, but that had been a crisis situation where Filia had been reduced to a state where her emotions were the most relevant. That she and Luna wanted to prevent Valgarv from getting their hands on them had sound logic behind it, even without mercy. How those two mingled, that Zelas could not even begin to guess.

Luna chose Zelas over Lei, which might have its own logic, but Zelas suspected a Storkhelm Syndrome.

Reason and mindless instinct met to get similar results : the wolfpack lived. Zelas wasn't typically in a situation where she owed her life to anyone; Xelloss had that experience a few more times, but not by much. He felt something close to gratitude, where Zelas just had an intellectual concept of debt.

Xelloss was in, she wasn't. In its most practical form, that meant certain people cared whether he lived now, and that was ... useful, but she hadn't invited these people.

**· · · · · · ·**

Xelloss handed the angelsblood talisman to Zelas before retreating to the astral plane for rest, Filia found herself a bed somewhere, Milgazia went on to try and get a word with his god.

Amelia and Zelgadis had walked into the central hall some time during the reincarnation, heard from Luna that Lina had been around and demanded to speak to her. Zelas didn't indulge them; Xelloss needed his rest.

There were a lot of pieces to be picked up, damage to restore, and the insufferable transformation of her island into a busy ant hill riddled with dragons, humans, variations of humans and a hefty dose of elves. Too many of those had a stuck up nose and covert contempt for her and her pack.

She had to dissolve the first fight no less than an hour after the Aqualord's rebirth.

The gods themselves could not be bothered to attend to mere mortals, naturally. The Aqualord had nary a moment to spare to organize Milgazia and Azonge's confused clan, as she spent all her time helping Rangort reconnect with the flow.

After the third conflict, she decided to send away most of her pack to scout for escaped devils. More than needed, way more, but it'd give her a timeframe to reach an agreement with dragons on sticking to a side of the island.

Under the surface, she also hoped her pack would catch all errant devils that might report her treachery. This was highly unlikely, but whatever chance there was for ... well, a dramatic reveal should be preserved.

Honestly, her breaking off the devil clan should have been a grand display of defiance with a moderate speech on the nature of chaos and dripping with contempt on how her fellow devils had failed to see the true path of the Lord of Nightmares.

Not a covert message delivered by some no name demon.

While she sent away her pack on the beach, Orun appeared from the caves with Valwin in tow. Close behind them, but at a decent distance, was Leyunso on some weird magical construct, a humanoid hunched thing that she sat on the back of.

Between Zelas and Valwin, nothing had to be said, but Orun stopped for a moment anyway.

"Miss Zelas, I ... how much of this all was part of your plan?"

"Too little," she said, knowing Orun wasn't really asking about the plan. Her own god stood behind her, disoriented and relying on her for sight. "I am the wrong one to ask. The lady Lina Inverse can answer you better. Once Xelloss has healed, we will summon her spirit. You may schedule speaking time, the Sailoon royals already have a reserve."

Not at all what Orun had wished to hear, but it didn't matter.

Orun took Valwin out to sea, or maybe he took her along. They danced as humans, until he became the dragon again. If the flow got better, Zelas could not see it.

No use staying wishing she could see, so she went inside to find dinner and information.

The leader of the western dragons, Ospirias, had an interesting combination of crisis of faith (for Valwin paid heed to a  _human_  and hadn't spoken a single word to him) and panic of what the former would mean for his credibility as the chosen leader — he was a dictator, but the kind that relied on assumed providence to be credible.

Neither Rangort nor Ragrairyos — what an ugly name — had any care for solving that issue. Rangort's monks assumed themselves to be in charge of organization, while Ragrairyos took aside Milgazia and Azonge for updating their tribe. Zelas suspected that sooner or later, someone would oust Ospirias. Until then, he provided some of the best miasma on the island.

Sailoon's people wanted to return north as soon as possible and assist in the protection of other countries. With hesitation, Rangort agreed to send along hir angels, but Ragrairyos meant to go herself. As she was the only god in the world still connected to the flow, she had mass teleportation available. They just needed a beacon to link to any devil invested areas.

The risk existed that Valgarv might attack — with two pieces of Shabranigdu, it would be more than an even match. Ragrairyos had to be unpredictable.

After that, the plan was to lay low until the other gods had restored their flow. Until then, they would work on growing new talismans in the hopes that with two, Lina could be returned. Vain hope, Zelas believed. The risk that Volphied would take over the machine was very real. She had no solution to this yet, and hoped (prayed?) that Lina might work her chaos.

Zelas killed about an hour with nicely persuading dragons to leave a quarter of the island for her pack to live at. That done, Zelas started tearing down Dalphin's abominable adjustments. Aside of the disgustingly tacky ornaments, the layout had been changed from neutral to lulling into a false sense of security. Zelas preferred to unbalance and unsettle, and now the island was to be populated by dragons and humans and elves, it served to redecorate for more than just artistic taste.

Her pack dripped back in over the course of the day. A few of them brought her the seeds of her island, which she planted in a few unused halls on her side of the island. For now, they could feed on the terrified remnants of Zelas's cult.

Her people weren't actually harming them, just intimidating and poking a little, but Amelia took offense anyway and she actually got Ragrairyos to come down for this.

"They cannot stay here. They must have better care," Amelia said. "Go annoy someone, I know you can eat that just as well."

"Why do that when they are here already?" Zelas said.

"Their quality of life is abominable," Ragrairyos said. "There is a decent prison maintained by Rangort's monks down south."

"That's your only concern? They have done a great deal of evil, but it was because they were brainwashed," Amelia proclaimed. "We should work on making them see the error of their ways, miss Claire! Not just imprison them!"

"I don't care for justice or redemption, it'll do you well to understand that," the god said. "All that matters to me is that as much life continues in the best state possible. If that means keeping certain people separate from others, so be it. This cult is a danger."

Amelia was eager to take that as a challenge to justice, but Zelgadis put a hand on her shoulder. "If that's the way you are, Aqualord, then consider this : Deep Sea Dalphin probably used thought reform. The best state they can live in isn't with her lies in their minds. They won't just become mentally healthy by being away from her or society."

"I am aware, but right now cannot afford to care. We have more pressing concerns."

That dissolved into a debate between the two what pressing concern meant, and why both the protection of the north and the care of the cult couldn't be done at the same time.

Zelas shot off and found Orun. By now, Valwin had retreated back to the sea and circled the island.

"Miss Orun, how is your god doing?"

"E is doing what e can, though that is very little." More than a little baffled, she added, "I do not believe e understands how to restore flow. I have had to explain him one can use their own energy to connect, and e did not believe it would work on gods. But it does. I had to answer him."

"You must have known all along that the gods are not the wise protectors of mankind," Zelas said.

"I did, but ... I don't know whether I hoped for more, but I certainly did not expect to be a caretaker for, well, a handicapped creature. Not that I mind, but I don't know what to tell my people, or how to help best," she said with a sad smile. Not the perfect mood to take on more cases, but she had the attitude to bear it.

"You'll find that a little bit of guidance is hardly caretaking compared to what actual humans would need. Can you take on a few more under your wings, perhaps?"

"What do you mean?"

Zelas brought her inside without more than arbitrary explanation, to the quarters of the cult. Waiting for agreement wouldn't serve her, so she just shoved Orun in the middle of the ongoing argument, fell back and watched.

This doubled as observation on Ragrairyos's nature; Lyos had been friends with Orun, if anything still existed, she might hold sway.

There was no noticeable sign of affection in the god; Ragrairyos didn't lean to her, didn't even look right at her, but neither felt the subtle irritation she had at others trying to get her involved in projects she didn't believe in. Unfortunately, Zelas could not tell whether this was ingrained confidence in Orun's judgment, or a remnant of attachment.

Orun didn't have much heart for the task, that much Zelas could tell. Oversee a bunch of strangers, when she had her own people and her own god to attend to. She had the compassion for it though, and Amelia supplied the willpower. Perhaps she could wheel in Shizuku and the western holy orders, they reasoned, but only after Valwin was less ... embarrassing for a god.

Zelas left them to sort it out to go do ... something else. After building a secure location to store the angelsblood talisman — keeping it with herself burned — she was out of somethings to do.

Xelloss didn't need anything, he hung at the edge of a very dragons with faith anxiety and fed on them; he informed her sometimes they made lousy jokes but not to the degree of Milgazia. One day she would have to investigate his jokes.

Filia had gotten three hours of sleep in before noise woke her up and the scent of conflict drew her out. This scent was gunpowders, since Jillas had thrown a bomb near a dragon he didn't like. Zelas could tell that much just from arriving.

"Just keep the rug out of our way. It stinks," Ospirias said, apparently on the end of a raging rant.

"Keep your face out of ours and you won't smell it," Filia spat.

"That's actually a decent idea," Azonge said. "The Wolfpack has half the island right now, but we should divide it across four, or whatever number of groups we have."

"Horrible idea," Leyunso said. She passed by Filia, dropped the hell gem in her hand and walked on to Zelas.

Not a meeting she wanted to have, so she left.

And having nothing at hands left her to think about everything, absolutely everything that had gone catastrophically wrong.

Starting with the demonsblood talisman. It had needed over a year to complete, slow even in the care of Lezo and Laust. In retrospect, the timing of the alleged war staring coincided with its completion. From there on, she could mentally torment herself on every subsequent mistake or unwitting ploy she had engaged in.

Dwelling on how much of a pawn she herself had been to Volphied was like a knife to the mind; she needed a distraction. Something to look down on.

Luna had already found herself a room, after confirming the owner hadn't survived the invasion. When Zelas arrived, there was a low key debate going on between her and some northern no name knight.

From the sound of it, Luna had been told by Liliane to return north and resume her work as a knight for the kingdom. Luna didn't care to go near Valgarv and the human was torn between encouraging her cause it would help people, and the very real possibility Valgarv would target her. Luna took that as good enough acceptance of no and kicked them out.

The human stumbled past Zelas without noticing her, but Luna saw her clear on the astral plane.

"What brings the devil to my door, hmm?"

A failing ego stability, but she wouldn't be alive if she couldn't think of excuses on a whim. She projected as the aristocrat and said, "I desire to know what you did to divert Vrabazard into Rangort."

"Sure, the dead have time and this knowledge you can have," Luna said. "See, there's this thing, this very complicated thing. You have this big animal that you want to go somewhere. You take a carrot, you tie it on a stick and you dangle it before the beast. Super complex. Imagine how suspicious I must've looked flying around there ... noticed the pillar was a little on when you got here? Had made sure devils on the island had spotted me, then got the gods to see me, voila. Instant carrot stick."

Zelas wanted to see whether banging her head on these walls worked. She had noticed the inactive pillar, and had dismissed it as a test run. Not a feeble attempt at drawing in Luna. This was not helping her self image.

"Now I wanna know something. What possessed you to go straight to Valgarv? First you won't risk anything, then you do  _that_?" Luna asked.

"It is none of your concern. You have become trivial as of now."

"Ha! Yet you're talking."

"I do that with a great many to drive away time," she said, turning to leave. What a mistake, she should have shifted away. Quick and composed.

"Talk with Milgazia some time, I hear his jokes are fantastic," Luna said with a chuckle.

Zelas accidentally snapped her cigarette holder in half. "I have enough time to get to the bottom of whatever I want, now."

"Bottom of my dragon too? Any pieces gonna be left?"

"And what would you be insinuating?"

"What happened on your island?" Luna asked. "Did you push her into being part of your pack?"

"You have heard all there is to be said," Zelas said.

"Yeah, and I don't eat emotions at all. Nope. None ... She's still afraid, Zelas."

"I merely told her the plot in the hopes she would make  _you_  listen. I had actually hoped she might do so by telepathy, but alas, here we are."

"No no, bad dog. Don't change topic. After the lengths you went through to not tell us anything, I don't buy that just  _told_ her. Also, you were surprised when I showed up on your side."

"I was surprised due to how little time it took and admit my mistake there. My lack of communication beforehand was for practical reasons. Given your response to Valgarv, I was correct in assuming you would do the wrong things."

"Oh, get real. It's not about you, bitch. Filia and Lina won me over within 10 minutes of truth."

"Yes, but now that the game has changed. See, I had no way of proving that the process might take the power of Siephied out of your soul, and at the time I was unaware you would trust miss Filia enough for it to matter. Be honest, would you have cooperated when I walked in months ago?"

"... maybe not back then, but after I started dreamwalking with Filia? I actually like the god killing parts of the plan."

Well yes, she should have split and explored other options, perhaps, but she was not about to indulge Luna with this.

"Zelas, if you break my dragon, I have a few things I can tell gods that'll make them hate you. Like, say, I followed  _your_ instructions to experiment on Valwin."

"Oh, so possessive? I take that the dragon is your replacement for mister Dilgear."

"Nah, Filia would make a terrible dog. I think she's more of a hamster. She hoards. You? You're like a salamander. The fire kind. You coax and slither, and you can burn down what you want. Who's to say you didn't snap all the way this time, and decided to break her down. Put her back together the way you can use?"

"Oh, you have the nerve to assume this on me, when I have shown consistent restraint in face of your transgressions?"

"Yeah, and I also manage not to burn the countryside every time someone pisses me off. Doesn't mean I never made anyone bleed when it suited me."

"Do not dare to compare us on this front, lady corpse. I am aware of my temper being a problem, while you revel in rage with only enough caution to not break your toys through. Tales I hear of you evidence naught but a spoiled child molding matters into the way she wants. You have not lived a life where merely feeling an incrimination emotion can endanger your life. It is not only in making bad choices, it is in being seen for what we are by the other devils. Do not preach to me when you have broken people further than I ever have, for lesser reasons."

"Oh, I'm fine, thank you for your concern," she said, folding her hands together in mock adoration. "Thing is, maybe I  _do_  feel guilty for shit I did. Do you? I've made a chose to try things a little different, you know. That's why I listened this afternoon when people tried talking. It's why I  _left_  to  _save_  Lyos too, damn the bastard for not wanting it. For all I know, you chose to be your worst because it is useful to you right now."

If anything, Luna seemed frustrated with herself as much as with Zelas. Without a good read on her emotions, Zelas couldn't guess.

Luna tilted aside her head to reveal an eye, coupled with a smug smirk. Like she'd let herself feel just a little to get a response.  _She_ would know all of Zelas's emotions easily.

Zelas answered with a cold look. "You spoiled child. What I would give for the power you so abuse on yourself. For you it is a lazy comfort, for me the ability to hide the wrong emotions is a matter of life and death."

"Wrong. I don't  _live_ them."

"Same matter as far as I am concerned."

"Yeah, whatever. Look, I'm gonna do some self exploratory bullshit, okay? You gotta know about that at least. I mean, you turned against the very thing you were made for. Doesn't make you nice though, you didn't choose to be that. Say, how did you change anyway, Zelas? How much of Xelloss's weird is intentional and how another damn accident, hmm?"

"It is not your concern," she snarled, half irritated because Luna's stream of questions didn't quite connect right. It felt like she missed something, again.

"Sure you changed  _enough,_ Zelas?"

Damn it all, Luna had a hook in and played the game back. This was unacceptable, regardless of how fragile the hook was.

This was one of those moments Zelas knew she had changed enough to count, because she did not waste energy on living out her what her temper suggest; a heavy mauling of this disrespectful mortal thing.

She left, simply, and then had nothing more to do than think about everything she had failed, including changing enough. It was better than being lectured by that disgrace.

**· · · · · · ·**


	35. Xelloss's Subsense

**· · · · · · ·**

The plan apparently was to occupy the island until either a new demonsblood talisman finished brewing, or Lina Inverse found a way to return without bringing Volphied along. That meant being stuck on an island for chaos knew how long, together with dragons and gods. He wasn't even allowed to go out of range of the gods because they suspected Valgarv would find a way to take him out — he couldn't be expected to stick to strategy.

All things considered, it could be worse, but it sure didn't feel like it when Zelas ordered him to summon Lina for further discussion. It wasn't the prickly Lina, the looming gods, or the tension of Zelas. Oh, no. What really dealt a blow to Xelloss's mood was a trivial little detail.

Amelia found out that Lina was now her sister in law by means of having married Naga. The excess of pure happiness coupled with proclamations about love and declarations on justice (the Sailoon laws needed a few adjustments that Amelia and Phil were entirely committed to now) were inescapable. Xelloss had to be near the talisman to keep Lina's connection. There was no escape from the syrupy poison. Not eating the emotions wasn't enough, he still had to smell it.

Oh, and Lina revealed that yeah, Volphied had plotted all of this and the machine in the red world didn't even have a reverse transport program. Xelloss found it difficult to appreciate the horror of this because  _oh chaos and order combined get me away from the happy inlaws. Even Zelgadis had been smiling for nearly twenty minutes. Make it stop._

The Sailoon forces didn't leave for the north soon enough and really, Liliane could have responded way sooner with offering to shelter citizens. Xelloss fled the moment Zelas told him he wasn't needed anymore.

Fleeing was hampered by the area. So much magic drenched the foundation of the island, it existed as obstruction on the astral plane itself. Wolfpack Island had this too, but the trees were alive and thriving while this was all walls and halls.

The astral plane was not meant to have corridors, yet here they were. It hindered the already murky perception of his astral environment. So, it came with fun details like the new Aqualord being able to concentrate her power next to him without his notice; at least not until he tripped over a little old lady.

He caught himself on a piece of coral, but found his staff stuck in her hair. She pushed it out with her own staff.

"So, ehm, miss ... Claire? Ragradia? How are you enjoying your newly regained godhood?"

"Ragrairyos will do."

"Really? That's not a public only thing? You don't seem enthusiastic about it."

Barely had he said that, or the old lady had been replaced with Lyos's form. "I'm unsure where I stand on a social or individual level, but that is a concern for less dire times."

Xelloss tilted his head, curious. "Is this something like the way the false Val existed?"

"No, this is no program, this blends," the Aqualord said, shifting into the little girl now. "I saw it fit to keep certain aspects of him, but they won't get in the way of business."

"So, no separate person?"

"Only uncoordinated personality traits," she said. "I'll be creative and sort it out, but I'm content with what I have."

He hunched down. "Content, sure, but happy?"

"Your kind of happiness, no. Let's be honest, beast priest. As a god with the purpose to rule, a fixation on small things serves me nothing but distraction. For you, whose intent is to mingle with life and manipulate it, becoming the abyss has more use than not. Don't confuse us."

"Well, we do whatever's most useful to us," he said.

Neither the Aqualord's emotions nor her expression really changed from the dim smile. "And it's so useful now. Can you imagine how the mortals would respond, hearing us speak of our emotions like garments?"

He scratched his head, not exactly comfortable with this either. For the life of him, he couldn't tell for what reason more : handling minds like dress options, or the shortage of options. He didn't even wear real clothes to begin with.

"Don't worry so much," the Aqualord said. "I believe we can manage it as long as we don't do something pointless like develop a conscience. Having ethics is already troublesome enough."

"It might be for you," Xelloss said.

"Hypothetically speaking, you might find your own ethics obstructive too, given the right circumstances."

He wanted to dismiss that, but curiosity won out. "Oh? Do tell this hypothesis."

She didn't talk, but did teleport him elsewhere.

After the unpleasant burn of the holy shift, he stood in a relatively small hall without physical exit, not even for fresh air. Seaweed drifted all around on magical currents. Behind twisted pillars, an open stairway spiraled the hall, leading to about twenty progressively smaller doors.

Filia had to live here, judging by the occasional frill and vase, as well as the potter wheel behind one of the doors ajar. The scent of soaps, clay and tea mingled together, the only deviation being the spicy scent from a little to the left.

There, draped over a couch with her nose in a book was Leyunso. She looked up, nodded at him and put her book away.

The Aqualord clapped her hands together. "I am given to know she and you can communicate without side effects. I can't listen to her speak without those side effects, and more so, I have to go north and be useful. Be mindful on your way out, I have left residue to block out any too curious angels of Rangort. Enjoy your relative privacy."

Now that was puzzling to say the least. The Aqualord withdrew without another word, and her promised barrier quietly went up.

Leyunso invited him to sit; she already had tea prepared. The right kind, of course.

"I'm told my ethics will be tested hypothetically?"

"Yes, you've been told, but it needs a little build up. My lovely child there has an interesting theory on Val, one that comes parallel to something our frilly dragon suspects. They put their thoughts together with mine, as best as we could with the way I can't talk.

Here's what we know about the Val program.

The reason you saw 'Valteira' in Kataart is because Claire allowed him to access past memories, which caused a distortion in the program that is Val. It gave access to some parts of the true mind, but not others. Those were Valgarv's memories filtered through Val's personality. This was not meant to happen.

Another distortion happened when the pillar rose first to godly power, including Volphied's resident power that the program is crafted from. Perhaps on its own, or exploiting the preexisting weakness, this mingled Val with the subconscious of Valgarv. However, when you pulled him through the fusion shield, the program reverted back to its normal modus operandi.

The intent of the fusion magic you and Filia had created was to protect the children, right? It didn't just cut off the pillar's call, it cut off  _all_  external input. The program Val may not be a real person, but the reason it passed as such is that it exists independent of Valgarv. He wore the personality and mind, and like typical clothing, we can steal it. How does combing life laws with fusion sound?"

Programs were incredibly complex, stagnant spells, the Black god black had used these to control their machine. That was all he knew. "Worth thinking about, at least."

"Say we hack the program and replace the command prompt, or in our world's words : we give it its own breath of life. A soul."

"Interesting, but let's say this is feasible. How would you hold still the one we're stealing from? Valgarv may not have perfect control of the pieces of Shabranigdu, but he has enough to be a very real threat. On top of that, he is far north, surrounded by legions. With every passing moment, he might become better at controlling his power."

"True, and that is why we can't afford to wait weeks, months or a year to sort out the issue of talismans and Lina's absence. As a reasonably smart but doomed man with father issues once said, one does not simply walk into the local hub of the doom blob," Leyunso said, nodding. "We can't experiment on him with armies around, especially not when the water devils show up. So we teleport him somewhere more convenient. Here's where your ethics come in : you will be the mole who plants the beacon around him."

Xelloss couldn't help but laugh. "Really now? I'm afraid that by now, I'm the first person Dalphin would suspect of being a spy. Even if I could lie without being horribly obvious, they know who gives my orders."

"Then, how would we convince the enemy to welcome you to their court?" Leyunso snapped her fingers, which set alight the dim lamps in every room.

One of the doors opened and there was Filia, asking, "You're done with the basics?"

"No," Leyunso said.

Filia had had cast aside her official clothes for the pastel housewife fare, her remaining hair tied back into a low ponytail. She looked almost normal, if not for the far more pronounced undercurrent of misery. Filia never was truly without it, but since the whole Kataart prison disaster it was worse. Seeing her so casual made the contrast stand out.

"Good." Filia stepped out and held the door for Jillas. They took a seat and claimed tea and cookies, all the while without Filia really looking at him.

"Hello to you to, miss Filia. Did you sleep well?"

Now she looked. Just calm, almost normal, but what she said wrong.

"The more we wait, the more people will suffer. Miss Lina needs to return as soon as possible, so I think that what I'm about to has a good enough reason," she said, which seemed rehearsed and out of the blue.

"Really now. Do what?"

Filia got that unique, devious look on her face. "According to miss Ragrairyos, the devils have word that Zelas joined the gods. Wolfpack Island has been raided and devils escaped from here. The know, but they don't understand everything. Dalphin must be confused once they hear that you and I were cooperating, maybe even seen performing fusion magic. What if we can convince her  _that_  only happened because of your orders and my broken mind? She has now idea that freeing me from Kataart was your choice.

You fooled Deep Sea Dalphin by making me feel betrayed where the enemy could eat my emotions, knowing it was genuine. How about we do that again, but with Zelas?"

He chuckled. "You can't play the Beast Monarch."

"Oh, really?" She inclined her head to Leyunso. "I'm told that Zelas knows you doubt  _something_  regarding her and the events that led to sealing Shabranigdu's first piece. We add fuel to that by insinuating that her command led you down a path that finally broke your faith in her. A terrible, tragic road down to sin. She'll see all the signs, but never enough to stop us before it goes too far. What were her exact orders when she sent you to fix things with me?"

"Find out why the fusion shield failed and do what you can to restore it. I found out it's because you can't trust me anymore, so—"

"Never mind that. We're going to pretend that you left something out, and that concluded the way to restore our bond was to engage in a starcrossed romance with me."

Xelloss's teacup slipped from his hands and clattered on the ground.

Old Filia would have complained about the broken cup and rushed to clean it up, but this Filia didn't even notice. He'd have said something about her slacking off, but was too busy with more important things like keeping his "What?" flat rather then screeching.

He also meant to say  _I don't follow_ , but he just ended up staring with both eyes wide open. The sheer absurdity of Filia saying that so casually ...

"Soon, the Aqualord will arrange we attack Deep Sea Dalphin's island. There, you will take the chance to defect to Dalphin's court. It makes sense, doesn't it? A devil cannot love, so when Zelas tried to make you do it because she wanted the best possible fusion magic, it drove you over the brink. The combined poison and the mental impossibility of loving another put together were too much for you. Enough to take the risk of defecting in front of Zelas.

I've been told that miss Leyunso said something to Zelas that made her ... think different. You can repeat that in all honesty before Dalphin and Dynast, if they ask why she herself goes on with her plan. Dalphin will welcome you with open arms — I hears they've lost quite a few priests and generals — and Valgarv cannot complain : you did exactly what HE told you. Destroy all the dragons in Kataart, which included me. We are going to get back our talisman, we will infect Valgarv with a virus and we will make him summon Lina for us. Are you game?"

Of course, if you were to defect out of the blue, Zelas will figure out within five seconds that something is up. She won't be shocked, she'll be curious or worse, she'll figure out and feel glee. If Dalphin notices those emotions, it's all for naught. Dalphin won't be questioning you till later, she'll attack and give you no chance to sell a ruse either.

When you defect, you'll do it by murdering you because you're fed up with me. Zelas is going to be shocked and surprised. She'll also be surrounded by a dragon clan full of whispers of how they saw it coming. She will believe she really drove you over the brink, at least long enough for the emotion eaters to believe it.

If that's going to work, we need to convince her that something is really wrong with you, but it can't be anything that'll make her bind you to the island, like taking risks or trying to flee. That's why we're going to give the dragons confirmation of what they think we've already got."

He stared for two seconds, or five. Then a shaky little laugh escaped him.

That had not just come from miss Filia's mouth.

It had not.

No way.

No.

No, really. No.

It  _had_. Oh,  _chaos_. Damn. It. All.

"You ... you want to repeat mister Jillas's scheme of emotional divide and conquer on a bigger scale," he said, looking across the line up. Jillas had that in him, and Leyunso had opened her book again. It described the cult of the god of marriage, whose features on closer inspection wasn't unlike that of Leyunso herself.

Filia herself ... well, it wouldn't be the first time she surprised him. It wouldn't be the first time she had played anyone either. This was just ... this was absurd. Reality couldn't be seriously doing this. Any minute now, she'd get nervous and back down of this ridiculous scheme. His own mind screamed like a strangled pig that this could never, ever be done. He could not betray his own liege, it went against everything he was.

The silence dragged on as he waited for the punchline that never came.

Yet ... he wasn't betraying her for real, now was he? He was only avoiding the truth for a while, so in the end he could present her the exact result she wanted. Everything would be back in place.

Filia leaned her chin on laced fingers, elbows on her legs. "What's the matter, Xelloss? Too proud to indulge in a scheme not of your own making?"

"It's just that I'm surprised to hear this from pious little you. How is you being murdered productive to this anyway?" he said too quickly, shifting in his seat.

"I'll come back, I've done it before. The Aqualord will secure my body."

"And whose idea was this?"

"You need to ask?" Filia huffed.

"You?" he said as if he'd just been given evidence the planet was flat. Just because he'd accept this reality didn't mean he couldn't rub it in.

"Yes, I! Hmm. Off course you'd underestimate me," she said, spiked with indignation. "Now, as much as I enjoy your lack of blabbering, will you respond already? I'm offering you to refine our contract. Or are you too much of a straight arrow priest to even try?"

Oh no, she didn't.

She had.

His pride appealed to his intelligence, but said intelligence was too busy thrilling about bizarre reality. Xelloss was the Beast Priest, one of the strongest devils in the world, slayers of thousands of dragons and a lot of other weighty titles that made it very silly that a golden dragon tempted him.

No, more specific : the temptation came from a fallen priestess of the golden dragons with the intent to deceive his mistress as part of the grand scheme to betray Shabranigdu, treating her own emotions like a tool without losing the life in them, while trying to corrupt what little ethics  _he_  had. This all because she was a good person by her own standards. She'd be chaos or law depending on what goal she strove for. She would use him like he himself used other people, but unlike Fibrizo had used him, she wasn't taking him away from the Beast Monarch or trying to destroy this fun world.

Filia was one of the most obnoxious yet unexpected things the world had ever given him — what better way to screw over Shabranigdu?

"How you are willing to try this scheme at all? I was under the impression you hated our way of operating."

"I do, but I cannot escape it. Zelas has used me like a pawn, and you are just barely less awful. By now, I've understood the game. I get nowhere if I don't play. If I have to use my allies, the you and Zelas I feel the least guilt about. So, will you help us?"

Filia leaned ahead with her hand held out held out, a simple gesture to seal a business contract, but her eyes dared him.

He shook it enough that she nearly fell out of her seat, breaking her serious look. "Off course! My my, you wouldn't even have needed to ask. Me, straight arrow? Pffft." Okay, not the best kind of denial. "I'm thrilled to accept a plan that involves completely ruining your reputation."

She jerked her hand loose and said nothing, just pushed herself a little further into her seat. Below surface irritation lay the ever present anxiety for him.

Xelloss sat back and cracked an eye open. "All jokes aside, will our recent — let's call it hostile interaction — be a problem?"

"No. Let's call it what it was, torture and manipulation, and  _use_  the result."

"How so?"

"You have permission to spook me when we need a certain effect, but we'll get into those details later. First, I want you to promise a few things." She pulled out a thick scroll from under her cloak. With a flick of her hands, it rolled open all the way to the opposite wall. "You will read and sign all of this. I've accounted for a variety of ways you could exploit vague rules. After all, the better we get along, the better our fusion magic will be. We're going to need it, so be a moderately acceptable cone and sign."

He read over it all : an extended version of her earlier demands. Many of them were specific events, like the time he had sent all the people in her factory to the wrong stations, or when he aided a rival company. Others were broad strokes with small print and references. It culled most of his options to manipulate her.

"I guess I have no choice," he said lightly and signed with a little cone with arms, which crossed its fingers. "That translates to me obliging as long as you do."

"That's not a real signature!"

"It is by Wolfpack standards!"

"Oh ... you ... you ... mister Jillas, that was your cue!"

"Cockroach!"

Xelloss felt his treacherous eyebrow twitch.

Smugly, Filia crossed her arms, looking at him through narrowed eyed. " _I_  didn't say it."

Well well, she'd found the loophole.

"I take it mister Jillas is going to be around a lot?"

"I'll be helping you two with this ruse. And you better behave like gunmoll wants it, or else I have a Drag Slave level bomb for you."

"Duly noted, mister Jillas."

This was going to be so much fun. He could have gone another thousand years with the simple travelling trickster routine, but perhaps it was time to reach a new level.

He hadn't even needed to say yes.

**· · · · · · ·**

Brewing doubt that accumulated into horrified acceptance of the truth; that they had to incite in Zelas in front of Dalphin. Three weeks of cooking to prepare for that one crucial moment.

It might be altogether more pleasant for Filia if they portrayed something genuinely sappy, but aside of Xelloss being sure he couldn't handle that, it wouldn't be credible. Zelas had to believe he actually tried but couldn't get a hang of it.

The role was a little out of Xelloss's league, and Filia was quick to remind him he only had one role : fishy priest. That little remark didn't fly by their agreement she not call him names again, but she proclaimed it a neutral statement, supported by herself being a fishy priestess. Leyunso quietly added that given how his part of that bargain turned out, perhaps he shouldn't complain too loud about technical details.

Leyunso took him apart in one of the many rooms, to transcribe Filia's script. Her curse worked through words, so it was safest if someone write it anew for her.

In the act they were to play, her penchant for manipulation couldn't be a reason for his interest in her. He was to be the suave, seductive master of words to her feisty, sexually frustrated, verbally challenging yet purehearted holy maiden. The whole opposites attract, light meets darkness thing with a dose of mind games. That's what the dragons expected.

"I don't think I can fake being fascinated with miss Filia to this degree when it's  _not_  about her being manipulative."

"We can't portray her as manipulative, it could make Zelas figure things out," Leyunso whispered.

"But I told my liege what miss Filia did first time meeting miss Lina. The whole pretending to try killing them just to get a response? Please, how could I not mention it?"

"If you didn't see this coming from miss Filia, then neither will Zelas."

"Still, wouldn't it be more fun if we did a more proactive variant than this? Or at least make my part not so tacky?"

"Everyone knows you're a jerk who goes around manipulating and murdering without a speck of remorse. Who would believe you'd be anything but an domineering, abusive asshole if you tried? Emotion eaters all over the place, beast priest. You and her already are at odds, we might as well play into the stereotypes associated with the bottom truth."

He still didn't like it, but had to admit that had to do with his mysterious priest reputation.

Leyunso had outlined a variety of manipulative things he should do with a note of,  _like you always do._  It bothered him a lot that someone so neatly saw through every trick in his book, down to the way he used politeness to get under people's skin. She must have observed him before they met.

Siephied had been powerful once, but now the god had become someone terrifying. She went on at length on the limitations of her powers and being unsure of the results, but with her near unlimited perception of the world, she had a massive advantage.

"Are you done yet?" Filia called from down below.

He wrote very slowly and didn't answer until he was actually done. A quarter of an hour later, he popped out of the room and said, "All done. No need to yell."

It did not incite an angry retort. In fact, she wasn't even paying attention to him. Her back was towards him and she spoke with Jillas about their home, whether Elena and the others could be informed (nope) and what to do about Luna (she apparently snooped around for Dilgear).

Xelloss stood around awkwardly, hoping she'd yell again eventually for him to phase right behind her and complain about the pressure. Five minutes later Xelloss was too bored to keep waiting; that and the conversation drifted to the topic of Valgarv and that started sinking Filia's mood.

He shoved her papers before her face, startling her. "How about we practice first?"

Without a word, she took them and glanced through it.

"You're not going to read it thoroughly?"

"Miss Leyunso conveyed the gist of it when we planned, earlier."

Leyunso sat down a few levels up and called Jillas up, treating it like a theater. That bothered Xelloss a lot; he was usually the one watching, not the one being watched.

Filia made a show of shoving chairs aside, then stood before him with a flat, cynical look. "You go first."

"Why don't you go first? You've actually got a romantic orientation, unlike me."

"Just shut up and do it, ..."

"Trash!" Jillas called from above.

This would be a long day.

The paper before him seemed far more daunting than it should be, and it was hard to imagine that shortly before he'd been thrilled with the idea of this subterfuge.

The more he thought about being daunted by paper, the more it hurt his ego, and that wasn't good either.

Right, he could do this. It was just words.

Xelloss opened his eyes wide, faced Filia and said, "Within you I find ... I ... No. No. There is no way I can say this." He tried throwing the paper, but it was too light and just fluttered down.

"Praise the heavens, you admitted you failure so quickly," Filia said as she snatched his papers and handed them back.

"Why don't you do better?"

"I plan to."

She found the paper with her dialogue, took on a most serious expression and started. "Xelloss, you are the darkness to my light, the-the — gnhhhhhehehehehehe."

"You too?" Leyunso asked as the snickering continued. "This won't be a problem, surely."

"No, no problem, it's beautiful writing, but then I have to associate it with ..." She flapped her hand in Xelloss's general direction.

"Sewer drainage," Jillas said.

"Thank you," Filia said solemnly.

"You think this is beautiful writing," Xelloss flatly said. "I dread to think what kind of romance you would have had with Valgarv, had been on the table."

That was meant as pay back for her earlier remark, and it got the desired response. Her amusement flickered out like a candle, her hands clenched.

"Don't go there." It had been a dead whisper, not the raised voice of indignation.

"You can't keep getting upset at every mention of him," Xelloss said. "How else are you going to face him?"

"Stop it!" she snapped.

"Stop the scheme? Well, you sure changed your mind about this scheme soon," he said.

She glared, but rather than speak she just teleported to one of the upper rooms. The papers fluttered to the ground.

"We'll try later, when he figures out how to behave!" she called from above.

"What? I wasn't even feeding, I just pointed out the obvious."

"Well, don't!" she said, and slammed the door.

"You slime," Jillas said, trying to sound angry but coming out more as a blubbering mess. "You don't get anything, do you? Lord Valgarv is ... just don't talk about Valgarv. You have no right."

And off the vulpen was, running up to the same room Filia had vanished into.

Leyunso jumped down, grabbed the washlist of demands and hit him on the head with it. "You have an  _excellent_  way of dealing with traumatized people."

"I guess I do," he said cheerfully.

His first impulse was to just shrug and let it brew, it would be good food later.

His second response was remembering nearly dying because fusion magic failed and he had orders to prevent that situation. To what extent did that go? When was it enough?

This third response was a fresh loathing of Valgarv for evolving new ways to ruin the fun.

"What just went wrong? I thought we were just taunting each other."

"And then she told you that you went too far. Now it's your turn : mind it."

"Mind what?"

Leyunso rolled her eyes. "Let's not pretend you aren't aware of respect. You can bear to learn where to expand that into. That's one place to start being right."

"Did you ever have to struggle with figuring out people? Not they themselves, but how you worked with them — beyond the curse, I mean?"

The weird grin on her face suggested yes, but her answers didn't even bear the power of her curse, so vague it was. "I'm only right inside."

They didn't continue working on the plot that day. Xelloss read over his guidelines, and burned them once memorized. After that he wandered around the island and tried spooking some dragons. This was easy and boring, and only got him bland food.

It would do him less than good to lament that he couldn't treat Filia as food source anymore, at least not outright. Not a pawn either. Xelloss wasn't alien to cooperation, of course, but the world was the Beast Monarch and then everyone else was a potential pawn, enemy, or both. His interaction with Filia was defined through things he wanted from her, for one reason or another. Entertainment and challenge, mostly. Now also fusion magic, and that came at a price.

Paying was fine, but where did that leave him? Or her? There was nobody to just ask.

**· · · · · · ·**

The next day, Leyunso and Jillas teamed up to plant rumors, each using their strengths to their advantage.

"I don't believe Xelloss and Filia are involved," Leyunso would say. Most who heard it thought she did believe it, but that she was covering for them. There were a few nitwits who couldn't tell apart opinion from fact, who only heard "Xelloss and Filia aren't involved", disbelieved it and ran with that. Alas, victims could not be avoided in war.

Ragrairyos could not believe that Leyunso was in fact Siephied. That was how Leyunso had fooled the machine too : reply to the principle that she was totally Siephied. Five thousand years ago, Leyunso had told the gods she was Siephied and found out the hard way what curse Lucifer had left her with. Since Ragradia retained these memories, it still worked. This meant Leyunso had to be extra careful with her choices, she could not say anything that made Ragrairyos disbelieve something vital.

Jillas did not lack technical intelligence, but sometimes he missed vital information. Very often, actually. It quickly gave many the impression he was low of intelligence on all fronts, therefore Jillas's act consisted of adamantly defending Filia's decisions and missing the bigger picture. For now that just centered around her with Xelloss cooperation during the conquest of Elmegiddo, but it would expand later.

The first real act would be at noon. Leyunso assured her it wouldn't involve the dramatic declarations yet, those were for later. All he had to do now was show up on the eastern beach and be himself, then get physical. They had to make up somehow, after that.

That got a little drawn out because the Beast Monarch wanted him to run the pack while she worked on the machine, but that wouldn't be an issue. Filia was to be irritated for the act anyway.

When he arrived at last, she'd fallen asleep on a rock. Nothing unusual, since further on the cliffs a lot of dragons lay down to feed on the sun. Filia however was in human form, close to the water.

He decided to wake her up by nudging her off the rock, so she landed face first in the sand. "Isn't it a little late to be sleeping, miss Filia?"

She groaned and climbed to her feet, slower than he expected. There were other things off, her face a little too stiff, but one would only notice that if they knew her well. There should have been surface irritation consuming her, not this cold stress.

"What do you think you're doing?" she yelled, her voice almost typical. "Where have you been anyway?"

"Why would I need to tell you?" he asked, floating just a little out of range. "I had important things to do, did that slip your mind?"

"Why, you..." Filia whipped out her mace. "You promised to be here in time!"

The bizareness of the gesture paused him. Sexual harassment aside, getting her to explode into violence without being violent first was nigh impossible nowadays. Xelloss just phased out of her reach.

"Will you cooperate?" she hissed below her breath. "Make some loud comments for those dragons to hear."

"I wasn't given enough material to work with," he said, pouting.

"That's the point."

"What's your point anyway?" he whispered while dodging the next mace blow. "Overacting? I don't recall you ever having been so vapid you forgot maces don't work on astral beings."

"I'm supposed to radiate belligerence," Filia whispered back, sounding very much like reciting an obnoxious school lesson. "Really, I'm starting to regret this already. It's making me look like a fool."

"Yes, it does!" he said, then added in a whisper, "See it on the bright side, I'm looking like one too for my association with you."

She threw the mace this time. It clattered onto the rock outcrop just after Xelloss vanished.

"So, how are we going to wrap this up anyway?" Another dodge.

" _You're_  supposed to make a move now, my role description just said I have to storm off after whatever you do. So get on with it," she whispered between swings. "But don't you dare do anything gross."

"Consider your definition of gross entails all of me, I'm not sure I can manage that."

"It'd be the feat of the ages," Filia said, with a hint of her usual sneer.

He had to come up with something to throw her off or she would walk away on top of this round. Hmm, he just had to be himself ... hmm, he liked Filia's hair better when it was long.

He appeared right before her again and grabbed her hand as it nearly planted her fist in his face. Leaning in, he ran his other hand through her hair.

"I bet I can restore your hair, want me to try?" he whispered. From a distance, it would look intimate and up close, it'd irritate her—

She jerked loose and leaped for her mace, far more startled than was good for their act. Damn it.

Filia realized the same and quickly wiped her fearful expression in favor of overacted arrogance. "I do not recall having given you permission to touch me."

She spoke it loud for the dragons to hear, but were the words just part of her role, or ...? Oh well.

In the same motion as picking up lord Mace, she took another swing at him. He dodged again and pulled down his eyelid with a finger.

"So, now what?" Xelloss asked from behind his hand. This was the hard part, because he had no idea about making up. He didn't even know what the fake topic they were pretending to argue about was.

"Okay, fine, I'm sorry!" she hollered.

"What?" he asked, cracking an eye open in surprise. He had expected that he was to start the 'making up'.

On a snooty whisper, she added, "I'm sorry for accusing you of corrupting miss Lina's immortal soul. I know now that not only didn't, but also that you would fail miserably if you ever tried. Or anyone. If I ever accuse or attack you again, I'll make sure it's over something real."

Then louder, she said, "You heard me! But that doesn't mean you get away with being late or throwing me in the sand!"

He didn't know whether to accept the apology or to be offended by the way she phrased it. Either way, he lingered for long enough to receive Lord Mace in his face. This was intentional. Really. It didn't hurt, but his projection had all the nerves and sensitivity for comedic physics to respond appropriately. He toppled over.

Well ... maybe it hurt his pride. Just a little.

While climbing to his feet, he stole a look at the dragons. They watched in horrified fascination, but now he looked at them, three scrambled off. Tss, as if  _he_  would explode. Couldn't they see he was the master of self control in face of undiluted (albeit fake) fury?

Filia stomped past him into the nearest tunnel. After making a show of shrugging, he phased away, after her.

"I'm not really sure what we just did, but I think the method acting approach works," he said. "We better not do it too often though, or we'll be out of things to respond to."

"Right," she said. Now they were in the dark of the tunnel and nobody could see them, her shoulders drooped and she wrapped her arms across herself. "Can you ahead and see whether there's any dragons ahead? In case we need to act some more."

"That's all you're going to say about our success at implying we're an item? Really? How b..." He cut himself off. How dull. How boring. Complaining about her lack of emotions because he'd expected a better punchline.

She shot him a foul look anyway. He shrugged and went ahead, but found empty corridors between them and her room.

"All clear," he said. She let go a breath, and Xelloss got the impression that being her usual self took effort now. Even her brisk pace seemed forced. In between Dalphin, Valgarv and his own actions, how much spirit did she have left?

Half under his breath he said, "My apologies for setting you up in that town."

Just a test.

"Hmm? Did you say something?"

She'd wasn't too far ahead to hear, unless her thoughts were elsewhere now. He thought he could guess, but he really didn't know.

"Never mind."

**· · · · · · ·**

The next day, every dragon on the island considered their suspicions confirmed. This led to the next stage, where Xelloss was to display inordinate fixation on her. In less savory words : stalking. Not the kind from before, which was keeping a track of where she lived and pop up in private space. More intense. He had to follow her around, unprojected at a range outside her dragon senses. Her actual range was about twenty meters, but nobody on the island knew this, so Filia feigned it to be less. It made it easier for the sharper dragons to notice he followed her specifically.

Sometimes he would pop up close behind her to startle her, at which she had to break into an exaggerated anger phase and they'd start bickering.

As the dragons saw it, this brief burst of anger devoid of sincere apology on his behalf, rather accentuating her amusing fury, ... it worked. Using Filia's anger as the punchline did miracles with undermining how serious anyone took her concerns.

In the meantime, everything about Filia was just a little off. He couldn't outright imagine being Filia, unless he tinkered with the dreamscape again, but he could remember what it was like just trying. When Zelas had something she disliked, she would order him or not, and everything was in her hands. He had no idea where to start here and now.

· · · · · · ·

Xelloss ran errands for Zelas every so now and then, which involved going to the main land on good will missions for their allies. A war raged up north, but Xelloss wasn't allowed to go near there. They suspected he would be a target.

Filia spent most of her hours in isolation, working with the Aqualord and Leyunso on magic that was beyond Xelloss. Part of their plan involved a waking sleep, a sort of hallucinatory state, which they would induce through the hosts in Valgarv's wings. He dropped by a few times, but couldn't make head nor tails of anything.

The topic of sleep inducement on chimera eventually brought up Luna Inverse. Xelloss hadn't seen her around since the Aqualord's rebirth, not even for the longwinded catch up with Lina. She had a room somewhere on the island, but Filia had already checked and she wasn't there.

"Are you sure about not telling miss Luna?"

Leyunso shook her head irritably, she was sure. Xelloss guessed she must've asked a few times already.

"Why not, exactly?" Xelloss asked.

Leyunso leaned close to his ear and said, "Rangort's trying to get into her mind. Even if it were possible to keep'em out, an extra lock will just make Rangort curious about what we're doing. Right now, e isn't trying to get into Filia's mind so we don't want them connecting. Rangort thinks Luna's the source of soul mess stuff."

Inconvenient, because with Luna's emotional state (or lack of it) she wouldn't have a hard time covering up a lack of terror at Filia's planned death.

Xelloss had no errands right now, but he had questions, so he offered to find her.

Luna had holed up in a little room she might or might now have carved out of the bedrock herself, surrounded by liquor that Xelloss recognized from Wolfpack Island. The kind with a magical aspect to it, to give it extra astral spice. Had Zelas given these to her or had she stolen them?

He knocked on her head. "Miss Luna?"

Her human body just grinned as she spoke with an inhuman, hoarse voice coming from her astral body. "Hey, clown. Wonderful day, isn't it?"

"What exactly do you think you're doing? What if there is an attack right now?"

She waved a finger, her human voice still unused when she said, "Nah, not know. We'd know."

"No health concerns either, then?"

"Whaaat? You talking health? Look, clown, Filia's coping by trying to hit you ... on you, whatever. I'm coping by liquor."

"This is coping? Have you been traumatized too?"

"How am I supposed to know? My subconscious is sabotaging itself. I'm trying to see whether being drunk can get the angst to happen. Then I'll at least know what's below there."

"Sorry, I'm not getting much angst," Xelloss said, scratching the back of his head.

Luna looked at the bottle. "Yeah, noticed it doesn't only thing that's happening is that banging your mother begins to sound plausible. I always wanted it, but not like wanted wanted. Like a fantasy, but I'd say nope if she asked because woohoo, I do not like being the weaker party. Maybe I should try sleep."

"I would gladly assist with that, but first, would you mind answering a question?"

_Don't do it._

"Shoot," Luna said.

_Really, don't._

"What does miss Filia like, aside of crafts, family and business?"

_Oops._

Both Luna's faces and all her eyes fixed on him. "Come again?"

He couldn't fight off the embarrassment anymore, so a little too prickly. "I just want to know!"

After another few seconds that lasted way too long, Luna said, "No skin off my back, whatever you're trying to do. Fairytales, she's a total sap. Family. Val. Redemption. Complaining. Good god, can she complain about customers. And you. But mostly customers. Construction and stuff to build, not just crafts. You know those three dimensional puzzles from Zephyria? I sent her once once, she loved it. I think cherries are her favorite fruit. I've been trying to convert her to cat fanaticism for years. Can you believe she only ever had one cat? She doesn't understand the importance of pets. They're therapeutic!"

Huh, some of those were new. Filia never did relax when he was around, now he thought about it. He'd seen that puzzle, for example, but she'd never taken it out when he visited. Probably out of a (justified) fear he'd arrange for it to be knocked over, and then blame her for rashness.

This would have been trivial news, once. Now his mind made a connection to himself because hell, did he know what it was like to hide a part of his self, just to avoid problems.

More importantly, he had no idea what to do with that. She had crafts available, cats and cherries might be hard to get but not impossible—

A harsh tap to his head brought his attention back to Luna. "Smelling concern here. You better not be pitying me."

"I'm not. Well, I am, but it's about fusion magic. If miss Filia feels too bad she can't do fusion magic right," he blurted.

Right as he said that, he wondered what the  _real_  Luna might be and why she was acting like this. This was going the wrong direction.

"Aha,  _doubt_." Luna sat up and hooked her arm over Xelloss's shoulders. "Welcome to the  _What If?_  club of existential crises. Club rules are honesty, I'm sure you can handle that."

Xelloss was torn between the urge to flee from the prickly, unstable demigod and a nagging need to find out what she meant with that. She didn't give him a chance for either.

"Your turn. Is Dilgear okay?"

"I'm afraid I don't know."

"Damnit, I tell you stuff, you should tell me stuff. Go find out."

"I don't see why it matters so much to you, miss Luna. You two weren't particularly attached, were you?"

"Dilgear was ... there. He was my thing. It was fun to have another sapient being as a pet and didn't break any laws, because troll werewolf hybrids aren't covered in the law. You know what it's like, right? You had things too." She more fell than sat back down.

"I wouldn't call them things, I do acknowledge they are sapient beings."

Luna tapped her skull, the astral one. "Yeah, but there's your thoughts and there's you. They're like pawns and toys, right? For me, it's like tools and ornaments. Thing is, it ain't me. Sometimes, very sometimes I do feel something else, like when Dilgear and Filia nearly died. It's not all of me, this me. And now he's of the Wolfpack. Not coming back. I really did screw up, didn't I?"

"Yes," said a third person, whom Xelloss had missed in the astral noise.

Filia stepped through and started gathering the bottles. "You're officially addicted now, are you not?"

"Right in one," Luna said with a wide smirk. "And it feels good, so shut up about it."

Filia just sighed. "I think you should get to bed and sleep. For real, this time. I'm sure that miss Ragrairyos—"

"Don't say that ridiculous name with me around me," Luna groaned. "It dis ... I _think_  it disgusts me. Getting anything, Xelloss?"

"Not emotionally, but I think emotions have a mental start, so you may well be."

"Xelloss, help me get her to bed," Filia said while picking up bottles and stuffing them back in their crate. She gave him a fierce look, almost daring to say no.

He just shrugged. Denying help was only fun if he got irritation from it.

With some coaxing, Filia hoisted Luna on her back, leaving Xelloss to deal with the erratic wing and tentacle manifestation. Now her lashing wasn't as focused, he could just hold them in place.

Getting Luna to her room was just a tiny bit of a problem due to her erratic projecting dragon parts all over the place. It got stuck on walls, knocked over a few elves and three doors were lost to the cause.

Luna's room was the epitome of neatness, giving Xelloss the reason she's gone to get drunk elsewhere. She didn't want this place trashed. The coral walls had been smoothed down and bland but symmetric furniture had been carved from rock. Apparently she didn't think the stuff of the cult was worthy.

The bed didn't have a blanket or pillow, but after laying Luna down on it, she automatically projected some strange matter that might either be plush or flesh. He couldn't tell what on earth it was meant to be. Somehow, it made Filia smile. Why did that inspire fondness?

It shouldn't be bugging him that much that he didn't understand either of them.

**· · · · · · ·**

The Aqualord had the habit of taking on her granny projection whenever she felt the need to lecture. Xelloss, Filia, and Leyunso sat on the chairs before her, almost like children to be chastised, except nobody was the slightest bit intimidated by her.

"I'm very disappointed," the god said with echo that Xelloss thought quite redundant. "Xelloss, you cannot be seen doing anything non-combat related that you and Filia agree on. Actually, you should be doing no genuinely nice things for anyone. You are supposed to be a smirking, all knowing suave tall dark and handsome figure whose ambiguously kind gestures don't extend beyond the love interest being intact."

"So? We just tell'em he tried luring her into a false sense of security by appearing helpful," Jillas said. "That's what gunmoll thought the first year Xelloss started hanging around."

"I can't believe I ever thought Xelloss was a good enough actor for that," Filia said with a snort.

"I  _did_  manage to lull you into a false sense of security," Xelloss said.

"Ha! No thanks to any skill of yours. I was just a fool."

The Aqualord tapped her staff on the floor. "Stay on topic now. Jillas's idea works, but we need the false part. How about we counteract it with some making out under dubious consent?

Filia shot up, her first genuine explosive reaction in a long time, tail included.

"No! Absolutely not! In fact," she said as she slammed her tail on the ground. "We will not kiss even in a consensual scenario because it's Xelloss. That should be without question. We conceived this whole plan without actually doing anything real and we're sticking with that!"

"Come now. All you'd need to choose a moment when the right audience is present, make a move and voila, the perfect mix of surprise and power display," the Aqualord said, more to Xelloss than Filia. "It'd be good if she ended up enjoying it, so she can claim 'it turned out I wanted it so it's okay' excuse later."

"That's exactly why I don't want it!" Filia said. "I'm saving my first kiss for a romantic occasion with the love of my life and I dare say I've had enough trauma already. I don't want to add molestation to that, whether it's part of an act or not."

The Aqualord clapped her hands together, still looking at Xelloss. "This unwillingness would produce the right kind of emotions. You should definitely use this, beast priest."

Xelloss crossed his arms. "No. First off, I do still have a reputation to uphold. After this is all over, I want to be able to say it's all fake  _without_  anyone pointing back to anything to say, But You Liked That, Right? Third, I have an agreement with miss Filia now."

Filia nodded vigorously. "Exactly. Do me a favor, miss Ragrairyos, and stop attempting to corrupt what little standards Xelloss has."

"Says the dragon who corrupted his standards to get him here," the Aqualord said.

"That is not the same. He got a choice," Filia said. She clenched her jaw shut and grabbed the tea pot, refilling up her barely sipped cup more out of frustration than need.

"Hey, I got an idea," Jillas said. "How about gunmoll gets a cut on her hand and the trash licks away the blood?"

"I'm not a vampire," Xelloss grumbled.

"Where do you get ideas like that?" Filia whimpered, yummy disgust pouring out.

"I did it with Elena once back in the town," Jillas said, a little hurt. "The humans responded like it was gross, and one of them asked whether that's how vulpen kiss."

"Oh, right. Sorry, I didn't mean to imply it's ... I was thinking about that with Xelloss in place, it's not that is bothers me when you and miss Elena do similar," she said.

"The only thing I'll be licking is ice cream," Xelloss sneered.

The Aqualord pulled a bucket of ice-cream out of the fridge room, grabbed Filia's arm and slapped a scoop with strawberry sauce onto her palm. This she held out to Xelloss.

"Ugh!" Filia pulled loose, flapped her hand around. "What is this about?"

The god just shrugged. "I'm being creative. Now, hop hop, to work. Xelloss, don't make that face once outside."

When Filia looked at Xelloss, the corners of her mouth twitched. She averted her face quickly, but he swore he heard something about looking like a frog.

"Miss Filia, didn't we have an agreement?" Xelloss said.

"Hmmgheheheh ... doesn't go for physical similarities ..."

"You're stretching the rules!"

"I learned from a master, you ..." she said with professional distance.

"Cockroach," Jillas piped up. "Hey, gunmoll, make that face you did when you ate that rotten egg."

"I'll do that if I don't have an automatic response," she said. "But I'm sure I won't need to  _act_  disturbed."

Reluctant, Xelloss followed her.

Ten minutes later and a script later, they had found a shadowy passage where a few elves would soon wander by. Filia had her strawberry free hand clenched around her mace, Xelloss had the shreds of his pride. She started swinging on the Aqualord's cue.

"Ehm, don't we need something to bicker about?" Xelloss asked.

"They'll just assume I'm offended by your existence."

"Now you're just pushing it!"

Filia stuck her tongue out, but her had face serious just as the elves rounded the corner.

Some of the group carried magical stabilizers, while two others were engaged in negotiation with local nature spirits. They chatted among each other with cheer, but fell silent when they sensed Xelloss.

Ugh, here went nothing. Xelloss opened his eyes, grabbed Filia's mace and threw it a few meters away. Before she could object, he leaned in on her. She had to step back against the wall to avoid touching him. "Come now, Filia. Don't play."

It came out way to stiff, he liked playing, damn it. At least with his back mostly to the elves, all he had to focus on was keeping one eye open.

"I'll do what I want!" Filia pushed him away, her hand brushing across a sharp piece of coral. She didn't actually touch it, yet left a smear of red.

A little too slow, she clutched her hand close, but at this angle Xelloss blocked some of the view. Hopefully the stiff move didn't stand out.

"Now look what you've done, you stupid dragon," Xelloss chided. "Was there any reason to be so aggressive?"

"Off course. You're a devil and you're ... you're ... I don't know what you want. Just keep your slimy hands off of me," she said, anxious to the core for reasons other than it would look like.

"What, are you afraid?"

"I'm not afraid of you, just what you can do," she said. As if they were different things.

Here came the hard part. Part of his outline meant he had to drop a verbal assurance of safety at some point. Not the typical  _don't worry_  or frustrated  _stop acting like I'm out for your blood, for crying out loud, I'm not even hungry_ , no matter how much he wanted to yell the latter. It had to be serious, not too overtly emotional and paint the idea of powerful self control.

"Miss Filia, I'd never hurt you," he forced out in his most serious tone. It bordered on a lie, barely passing on the different between would and could and want. Oh by chaos, how he wanted to top it off with pushing up his nose and asking how flammable her cloak was.

"If you didn't mean it, why do you keep doing things that do that?" She spoke the words, but didn't look at him anymore. Her thoughts had carried her away again, probably to a dark mountain, where the light burned and the sounds pounded and every bone he'd broken hurt so much more than it should.

He took her hand, brought it to his face and forced his mind to think about anything other than how he would look to those elves.

The ice cream hadn't melted due to magic, but that also meant the unpleasant sting of holiness.

Filia jerked her hand away, clutching it close to her. She lingered longer than she needed before teleporting away, just to let them see the fear in her eyes.

Xelloss glared over his shoulder at them, generating bloodlust by thinking about Valgarv. Then he left as well.

The mockery of coercion they set up felt viler to him than to Filia — another thing not the way it should be. In his preferred way, Filia was the flighty, uncontrolled part of the dynamic, yet he still twitched when he returned to headquarters while she ... where was she anyway?

"That was adequate," the Aqualord said. She pointed at the coffee table, where three sorbets had been placed. Xelloss wasted no time grabbing one, curling up on a chair and obsessively eating it. Had to get the sinking feeling of realization out of his head. He decided that he absolutely despised acting.

"Gunmoll, don't let your ice melt!" Jillas called to some room. Xelloss looked around the edge of the chair.

"Eh? Oh, yes. Alright," Filia said from the bathroom, where she scrubbed her hand clean with a sword polish cloth. "Just a minute."

"Doesn't that hurt, gunmoll?"

"Xelloss licked me. It's something I will have to live with till the end of my soul," she said, face solemn save for a twinkle in her eye. With an extra helping of melodrama, she continued, "I can only  _hope_  to dull the sensation."

Filia joined him after a whole five minutes. No way did she believe she needed that time to get clean off. This was about rubbing it into him.

"Admit it, I did the face perfect. You were lucky they didn't need to see your face the entire time," she said between spoons.

"It's not hard to act when you really feel disgusted, but it's hard to not enjoy this ice cream, even when served on you." That came out very wrong.

"I noticed alright. Was that a wolf tongue? It felt like sandpaper," she said, almost chuckling. Just almost.

**· · · · · · ·**

By evening, everyone just  _knew_  that Xelloss did dubious things with Filia. The stories went roughly in two directions. On one side, those who believed Filia was a forsaken traitor whom the gods only used out of need. On the other, those who believed was a poor, untrained dragon seduced by the power of darkness. The anomaly who suggested that maybe Xelloss was the one tempted by the light was ignored by all. Leyunso made sure to sound ambiguously supportive of that individual.

Zelas, who made a point of being around the mesh hall to unnerve dragons, called him in eventually.

"Xelloss, since when are you into blood?" she asked while drinking what might be a glass of blood. "I don't recall you having expressed any interest more organic than food before."

Put on the spot like that, he had about five seconds to develop an impromptu fascination with Filia's craft. This involved slightly conceding that her fusion vessels were more durable if you took away his tampering with the laws of physics.

"I just think there's something interesting in the way miss Filia uses her hands for such versatile purposes when the average dragon does not even bother having hands, or use them for such, ahem, on hand purposes when they do. Since her hands are now less useful thanks to me, I'm interesting to see how she adapts. I'm thinking about taunting her when she can't."

"I see," Zelas said in tone so lifeless, icy was a worthless metaphor.

**· · · · · · ·**

Next stage, Leyunso went around the island claiming that Xelloss and Filia were not in a relationship, which sowed some basic doubt, but did in and of itself not compel people to believe the direct opposite, largely since it had no opposite that meant romance. She was shy of claiming they were not romantically involved, because in the future that would mean these people would believe they had been. Both Filia and Xelloss insisted this would be avoided.

Besides, the way the dragons extrapolated leaned towards base sexual obsession anyway. They could not unite the idea of a spiritual dragon tolerating a devil, so she had to be defective somehow. That way, they could see her as not one of them.

They could leave it at that, but the Aqualord insisted they play into it, which was met with again equal resentment from the parties involved.

"I don't have such base desire!" Xelloss huffed. "We're playing this as me being control hungry, I do not need to be hormonal for this."

"You got addicted to tea," the Aqualord said. "And it's so convenient if we give the dragons what they assume. It'll solve the problem of either of you lacking romantic feelings. Every astral being can tell you don't have those."

"I will not sink so low in feigning it when it's not necessary."

The Aqualord rolled her eyes. "Yes, but we're invoking stereotypes. The taboo of dragons and humans about love involves carnal desire as if it were the same thing as romanticism. So fake carnal or I'm going to melt the ice cream."

Ten minutes later, they were in a hall way with a closet when a group of humanoid dragons would soon pass by.

"Let's just get this over with," Filia said when the sound of heavy footsteps neared the corner.

They turned their heads as if surprised when the dragons stepped around, then Xelloss grabbed her wrist and dragged his into the closet. He let go as soon as they were inside.

The sting of fear hit him, but it quickly ebbed to suppressed anxiety. Right. Small, dark space deep below the earth, drenched with devil magic.

"You stay on that side." She drew a line on the floor with the tip of her boot and look up, daring him to cross it. Oh please, as if he was so childish. Anymore.

Outside, the dragons hesitated, apparently unwilling to pass by the closet now Xelloss was there.

"Make noises," the Aqualord said, disembodied.

Xelloss complied with the most appropriate sounds he knew.

"Xelloss, stop making duck noises," Filia hissed.

He raised an obnoxious finger. "Ducks' promiscuousness is legendary."

"Xelloss. Neither of us are ducks."

"Well, why don't you do the noises?"

"I ... " She went beet red, for as far as he could see in the near dark. "I don't know what would fit. They never taught me anything about ... you know."

"Oh. I don't either. Ehm, miss Claire? How do horny dragons sound?"

"I've never paid attention to dragons doing it in human form. I do know about humans though, I noticed plenty of that in Sailoon."

Both of them stayed silent, waiting.

"Ugh, fine," Claire said after a long silence.

On cue, she produced a plethora of moans, cries and desperate whispers. Filia became even redder and sank into her corner, hiding face behind her arms and knees.

Xelloss stayed put, determined not to be affected and failing. Not ten meters from the closet, the dragons muttered among each other. The things they said about him were anything but befit to a mysterious priest or servant of Zelas Metaliom. His eyes twitched uncontrollably until he joined Filia by sinking into his own corner.

This was it. True and utter social mortification for the first time in his existence. Mortification tasted so, so good, how could it be so awful to  _experience_?

He tried eating Filia's negativity, but found it muddled with something positive. Forcing his eyes away from the wall, he met Filia's stare. Hand clamped over her mouth and shoulders shaking, she did her best to stifle laughter.

Five dozen ways to turn that on her announced itself to his mind, brawling in desperation to be used. Filia's natural talent for sting his pride finally asserted itself, but now he had a reason not to act on it. It was just useful.

She hadn't felt happy on anything in too long. Really, he  _could_  just let her have fun, because he did owe her a lot and she needed it. That thought in itself didn't even sting. It wasn't even hard. Damn it.

"You should be a duck," Filia spluttered behind her hands.

**· · · · · · ·**

Xelloss spent the rest of that day remembering times when he pulled off amazing schemes to patch up the blows to his ego.

In a better mood than before, and eager to avoid meeting dragons to ruin that, Filia and Jillas convinced the Aqualord that they go to the shore. The old transporter that Almayce had built could probably be restored for more efficient maneuvering. They were allowed to go, but only with an escort.

During this, Leyunso called him to the headquarters to iron out a few more things, such as how to get Lina to show up for the actual subtraction of the Val program. Xelloss braced for the jarring effect of her speech by shoveling up ice cream.

"Guess what? I've found us a way to get the angelsblood talisman," she said with no shortage of glee and cognitive distortion.

Xelloss's human form flickered, so he switched to pure voice projection. "And that would be?"

"Lei Magnus is on the southern shore and I believe he is still interested in obtaining a talisman. He can be our diversion."

"My liege did tell me he attempted to take it, but it did not seem a priority. Are you certain he will risk coming here? Why does he even want it?"

"I do not know why, but I am certain he will try to take it again. He circles the area, depending on the instabilities to remain hidden from the devils. I'd much prefer we use him than do anything suspicious like ask whether we can borrow it. Sure, I could brainwash a lot of people and just walk out with the talisman, but I'm not keen on such large scale mental mutilation. Not to mention the side effects."

"There's a risk he'll kill people. I doubt miss Filia will like the idea," Xelloss said, finally regaining his solidity. He'd just barely kept the icecream in his hand, which he resumed eating.

"Lei Magnus isn't into dishing death. If we keep the path clear, it should go off without a hitch," Leyunso said, bouncing a little on her chair. "Aaaah, it's so wonderful to say all this without needing word gimmicks! Before I became human, I did not appreciate speech!"

"If you don't mind me asking, how did you handle becoming a human? I imagine it must be very limiting."

"Physically, you bet. Mentally not much changed. I didn't get new cognitive functions, if that's what you mean. I have no need for social bonding or external affirmation of identity and purpose. The reason I spent so much time as the god of marriage is because it fascinated me. People just came and offered me insight into their minds!

You know the feeling, I'm sure. Tickling curiosity. Finding out new and unique things, it kept me entertained for a long time. Now very little surprises me, but that's why acquired tastes are a good thing." Leyunso's smirk made him uneasy.

"Do you think your organic form has to do with that? I noticed the Aqualord has forsaken a lot of the more earthed traits she had as miss Claire. She also seems to avoid talking to me unless it pertains to the plan."

"Ragrairyos decided not to be social, but give her some time," she said. "Even if she does not decide to be social, she'll love life eventually. Just as we all have come to be, when we're forced to appreciate it. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to stir the fire a little. Milgazia and Azonge are talking about you nonexistent closet adventures, and Sylphiel and Memphis are having them. My acquired tastes need attending."

**· · · · · · ·**

"We weren't doing anything important in that closet! He was just ... eh, tickling me!" Filia told Milgazia upon her return.

"She is telling the truth," Leyunso said for emphasis.

**· · · · · · ·**

Xelloss had a thousand years of experience with when he could expect to be drilled for explanations. Usually when Zelas suspected he'd acted on his own and that had messed up something. The biggest immediate problem was that Zelas could order him to tell her what existed between him and Filia any day now.

He needed at least some material to work with. Sacrifices had to be made. Sacrifices of dignity yet again. And patience. Chaotic lord, the patience. When his favorite people slept, he killed time with reading or finding someone to taunt. Not now.

Not that he was going to ever be a duck. He chose a more dignified form, the quadruped winged wolf Zelas used at times, but in his own dark colors.

Filia woke with her arms around fur, half under a wing. The moment she raised, he licked her across the face (actual wolf tongue now, just so she'd tell the difference) and said, "How are you doing this morning, miss Filia?"

" _Aaaaaaaah_!" She kicked him so hard, he hurled across the room. Finally, freedom after none boring hours!

"You agreed not to invade my privacy!" she shrieked. "What on earth were you doing on my bed?"

Scrambling up on his paws, he shook our his wings as if that got rid of the humiliation. Calmly, or so he tried, he said, "Yes, but this falls under permissible spooking. I needed some method of honestly saying I did certain things with you. This way, we don't need to repeat the closet trick. Ever again. Besides! You have now genuinely lost your temper at me, so I can honestly tell my liege that I get your frustration out of this."

Filia groaned and pulled a pillow over her head.

"We did agree that for the sake of the project, I could spook you."

More groaning.

"Besides, I just laid down, then you curled around me. I did not invade your privacy so far as you invaded mine."

The pillow joined him, leaving a seething blonde with her tail popping out on the bed.

"No, you vile ... " Clenching her teeth, she took a deep breath. "No, do not twist my words. I didn't do that, I slept."

"So? Are you claiming the actions are someone else's?"

"It wasn't a choice, unlike you did. Just invading my privacy like that. Don't twist my words, you know what I mean." Now she only sounded tired.

"Do you really?"

"Xelloss, this is exactly the kind of thing you need to stop doing if we are to cooperate. The undermining, the belittling. Do you even realize how much you bear down on people?"

He cracked an eye open. "I  _eat_  the results, miss Filia. Not now, but I know the drill."

"That's just it, Xelloss. You just eat something tasty, but you don't understand how thoughts disarray and nag even when the most intense of an emotion is gone. Being in a bad state isn't just feelings."

"What are you getting at with all this?"

She clutched her short hair, her teeth gritted, her face crunched up like she was in a hurry but didn't know what fork of the road to take. A few times she started to talk and broke off without finishing a word.

Finally, she said, "I know you can be kind when you think nobody's watching and there's nothing in it for you. However you do that, can you try thinking like that when it comes to me? Just for a little?"

"I do that sometimes. It's got nothing to do with this. This is just a set up."

"You could have asked me," she said, her voice almost shaky ... was she going to cry? Over this?

"Are you really going to make a big deal out of this? You were only bothered for a few seconds. You seem to put up fine with all the demon energy around here, so I doubt I made your sleep much worse. I'm not even eating anything right now."

" _GET OUT_!" she screamed.

"No need to make a fuss," he said. He phased away to just outside the room. Inside, he heard muffled sobs.

**· · · · · · ·**

Almost an hour later, Filia appeared in the central room. Xelloss had driven away the time by reading one of Leyunso's books.

She still had red eyes, but otherwise looked composed enough.

"What was that about?" he asked.

"That's  _my_  question," she said. "Can't you tell when you go too far, even with a list?"

"I'll keep our agreement to the letter, it's not my business if you get fussy over details. Or is this enough to make fusion magic difficult?"

"You're not even trying to understand how you bear down on people, aren't you? I don't have the energy anymore, Xelloss. The rules of that list aren't about me controlling you, they're just ... oh forget it. Have a new rule : don't touch me, or arrange for us to touch, and stay out of my bedroom. And I don't want to see any black feathery wings anymore."

"Technically, it's not really your room. This island belongs to—"

"That's exactly what I mean! For heaven's sake, can you just once try to let me say or feel something without turning it against me?"

"I was just pointing out the obvious."

"You insufferable piece of ... " She didn't say it, but she made a very irritated, disgusted noise while she kicked over one of the chairs.

With insincere calmness, he said, "I did it because I need to be able to say certain out of context truths. Part of your list means I am not to wake you when you need sleep, but I got the idea while you slept and my liege could call me anytime. Plus, I can say I pushed you over your prudish limits this way. My liege may have trouble believing you'd do anything so soon."

"As if you weren't aware of the loophole of asking mister Jillas or miss Leyunso to wake me. Aren't you leaving something out?"

"Like what?"

She narrowed her eyes. "Don't you think I've talked with miss Lina about everything? When I told them how you looked and acted when you fought Valgarv or took me hostage, they were  _surprised_. You never let them see you like that, only me. You choose when you're going to scare people, and you like doing it with me."

"Ah, is that the real problem? It's about what I did to you in the war of Kataart. You think I'm after your fear?"

"Aren't you?"

Being truthful had worked before, so fire away.

"I used to be. Before I met you, I never had to do hurt a dragon to earn their fear and respect. But you, not only did you not, you're also the only one who knew how to get under my skin, and instinctively so. Challenge a devil and they defend their pride to the end. I wanted you to fear me just by being around you, like all dragons did. I also did not want to ruin my casual standing with miss Lina, so yes, it's intentional that only you ever saw me like that.

Remember the confrontation with Valgarv in his base? Imagine what would have happened if Valgarv hadn't moved out of the way fast enough. There you'd be, atop a skewered body covered with his blood, me inches from your face. No dragon before had been so close to seeing me kill another and lived to remember. It wasn't worth it before, but with you?

So when I had to act the devil I was expected to be and torture you directly, yes, I enjoyed it more than it bothered me. For what it's worth, it turns out I don't really like the results. The fear doesn't satisfy me as much as I assumed."

In a way, it was a test. If she responded with renewed terror, he knew where the main cause lay. She didn't. Just disgust with a layer of fear, but not the same rabid panic as before. Had to be something else, then. Hmm, black feathery wings?

Oh, she might've been half awake and seen those, considered it part of a nightmare. Filia being prickly about having her privacy invaded was old news, the crying not. Put them together, he supposed it made sense she lost it.

"Yes, it's always about what you can get from me, isn't it? Entertainment, respect, food, words," she said dryly. "And fright, of course."

"For the last time, just now, I didn't do it to scare you," he snapped.

"Oh, forget it!"

"No," he said. "Explain why you're making such a big deal about this. I had a beast form explicitly because you'd freak out if I was in human form, and you know I need a ruse."

"And it just had to be black wings, right? You never take on animal forms, except now!"

She teleported back to her door and slammed it behind her.

He was about to phase after her, but stopped short at the door. Behind it he could hear constrained sobs, somewhere close to the walls. Sorrow poured out, accompanied by the kind of anxiety both of flight instinct and of long term stress.

Black wings ... before everything went to hell, Val had always been able to cheer her up just by being there. Now he was the reason she'd been in pieces.

No more Val, no more purpose that she actually  _liked_  living out. Did she still think she needed to redeem herself, or worse, did she think she had to redeem Valgarv? Tss.

He'd known this tore at her, seven years ago already. He had noticed what went on before anyone else, but what Lina had told Filia wasn't very different from what he had said. You have to act, or there's nothing to save. For the life of him, what had Lina done right that he hadn't?

He was powerless in this, and if anything could unbalance a devil, it was that feeling. Something had to be done.

The lasting effects of trauma weren't unfamiliar to him. When suitable, it was hilarious and nutritious to trigger these people. Lina typically tried to claw her way into rock to hide, and if that failed, went to hug Amelia. Filia didn't try to dig herself in, but might have use for the second option.

Xelloss himself was out of the question. He considered Jillas first, but no, Jillas turned into a blubbering mess whenever Valgarv was mentioned. Orun was busy with the cult, Luna was too drunk, but Sylphiel was around. She understood loss well enough.

He phased out of the room, spent twenty minutes finding her, then warped her along without an explanation.

Confused, Sylphiel looked around the room. "Where are we, mister Xelloss?"

"Well, you see—" he started and got no further.

"What's this?" Filia stood in the doorway of the kitchen, a warm teacup in her hands.

"Miss Sylphiel? You're still here?"

"Yes, uhm, you see, mister Milgazia isn't quite alright and miss Memphis sometimes takes over some of his duties and I thought I could help out a little ..."

"There's no shame in admitting spring has arrived, miss Sylphiel," Xelloss said.

Filia grabbed Xelloss by the sleeve and pulled him into the kitchen, closing the door. "This area is supposed to be a secret, why did you bring her here?"

He scratched the back of his head, and said, "Well, I figured you needed someone to hug."

Filia looked at him like he'd just named Milgazia the funniest person ever.

"Is everything alright?" Sylphiel asked on the other end of the door.

"Just a minute!" Filia called. She pulled Xelloss further from the door and whispered, "I can't just go hug miss Sylphiel, even if I tell her what I'm upset up. We're supposed to be a thing because of you taking your orders to the extreme, what's it going to look like to Zelas if you need to drag in others to ... you're trying to comfort me?"

"Yes, and you can just tell her we had a lover's spat about me triggering you with Valgarv. Miss Sylphiel probably knows I've triggered miss Lina a few times so it'll be totally credible."

"Ugh, now I have to act about  _this,"_  she said with a sigh, and then with suspicion, "But really, why are you even doing this?"

"I'm sensing this was a mistake." A big, big mistake of the  _I wasn't even thinking about the plan_  variety with an appendix of  _how do I explain this to myself_?

"I'll go talk to her," she said. "Can you just stay out of the way?"

He left them to talk and spent that time avoiding Zelas. One of the lieutenants told him she wanted him to visit the center of the island to have a word, which he just barely dodged thanks to the Aqualord asking for a favor. He was permitted to assist the god and Zelas hadn't given an urgent message, so he could  _stall_. Not that he needed more fuel, he just had to think up a way to put it together right. If Zelas asked, what happened after, he'd be in trouble.

The Aqualord occupied him with dissolving curses on a few of her dragons, whom had run into trouble up north. This was boring and vexing, but kept him busy enough. One of them tried making a joke and he made it clear he didn't like that with glaring. As expected, that worked. Typical, boring dragons who shivered before his overrated wrath.

To his surprise, Filia dropped by the sick bay. Sylphiel was with her, and announced she'd like to help tend to the injured. Sylphiel knew how to handle demon curses that were developed in the last thousand years under the barrier, and Filia stronghanded some dragons into letting a human tend to them — really just a matter of pride, Xelloss realized, as they were glad to be rid of him.

Once Sylphiel was trusted and at work, Filia went outside with a nod to follow directed at Xelloss.

They found a quiet corner, and Xelloss asked, "Did that help? You don't seem so prickly anymore."

"Pffft. Prickly, that's what you call it?" she scoffed. Somewhat better then. "But yes. It was nice to talk to someone as understanding as she is. You owe her an apology for just grabbing her, though. Actually, you didn't apologize for the room incident either."

"Should I start a tally book?" he joked.

"That's a wonderful idea," she said. "Since your words are worthless most of the time, you can pay them in tea, or whatever else someone may prefer. I think miss Sylphiel may like some earth for flowers, and seeds to go with it."

"Ehm, that was a—"

"Great idea," she said through gritted teeth, a challenge in her eyes and tone.

"Well of course it's a great idea," he said. "I have those all the time. Why exactly are you here anyway? I kind of need to buy myself some time."

"It's actually about that," she said. "We're going to do something better than your silly gimmicks," she said, slyly. "You know, it's really convenient your name begins with an x. Meet me in the central room at eleven. Ragrairyos will give you an excuse till then. Now shoo."

**· · · · · · ·**

Eleven minutes after eleven, he arrived in the central room to find a little card that said,  _Go up to the fifth room from the bottom of the spiral_.

The room was filled with puffy chairs, trinket on shelves and blackboard against the wall. Filia stood before it.

"Now that our students have arrived, please take a seat," she said, gesturing at one of the chairs.

Xelloss raised an eyebrow. "And what would this be?"

"Sensory Education for Xelloss. Today we will be teaching you all about sensory meridian responses."

"The what now?"

"Don't worry, it has nothing to do with fornication. Not even close. It's about soft sound, superficial touch, dedicated slow work : a form of mood sensitivity that manifests in a tingling sensation on the scalp and upper back," the Aqualord said from somewhere. He looked around, but didn't spot her projection.

"What does that mean, exactly?" he asked.

"It means you need to quit talking," Filia said. "Your voice is an automatic destroyer of mood."

His voice took a deliberately annoying pitch when he said, "And we will do this why?"

Filia chalked the class's name on the blackboard, abbreviated : SEX.

"I doubt she'll ask you to write it down when she asks whether we're doing it." She erased it, if only to quell the embarrassment it caused her. "I bet the class will bore you, but you're not supposed to be content anyway."

He smirked. "I'll take boredom over the collapse of our plan."

"Excellent. Now shut up and stop having gloves."

The items were mundane tools, each used for one purpose or another. The running theme was things like tasks done with great care, superficial touch and soft sound. Filia performed them herself and had him imitate a few, all to no effect. He didn't noticed anything particular in Filia either, save an occasional wave of enjoyment. He tried entertaining himself by thinking up ways he could frame this as something else.

Once, before having heard Milgazia tell a joke, he would have described it as the epitome of boring. It didn't even come close to the Anti-Fun's desecrating words, but he still grasped at straws to keep his attention.

The alleged sensation itself was a nervous system response, according to the Aqualord. He could project a functional nervous system but that didn't create the cognitive link, just like projecting hormones wouldn't give him lust or having a stomach didn't cause hunger. However, due to the strong cognitive effect the potential should be more likely to exist. At least, Ragrairyos claimed this. Xelloss was too busy trying to not talk to figure it out.

So many things he wanted to needle her about, so many ways to try and provoke that excellent anger.

"You're not even trying to be serious about this," Filia declared soon, when they were seated next to each with sand bowls in their laps. He'd not fully process that. Zoning out.

"I didn't say anything," he said.

"You make faces," Filia said. "And I can read."

Oops. Xelloss had used the colorful sand he was supposed to arrange into a useful form for writing,  _All work and no play make Xelloss a dull devil_  in tiny font.

"Excuse me for trying to keep my sanity in this borefest. I don't know how I'll ever convince my liege this situation, useful title or not, is something I'd do for fun."

Filia puffed up her cheeks. "Fine, tell her it sucks and your stupid order makes you give into my needs or something."

She stood up, her own bowl in one hand. Leaning over Xelloss, she grabbed his bowl and brushed past him as she stood up. He tried to hold on to the bowl just to be annoying, which caused her hair to move over his hand, just briefly, but ...

Something like spray of drops or goosebumps run over his head, down his back.

Oh. This ... well. Wow. This wasn't bad at all. He might actually keep his nervous system on like this.

Too bad his trigger preferred that he not touch her.

**· · · · · · ·**

"Yes, my liege Beast Monarch, I had SEX with miss Filia. It took some getting used to, but by the end it was quite pleasant."

She tapped her long nails on the edge of her throne. "I suspected as much, but what eludes me is why ever you would do that."

"I restored our relationship in the best way possible, didn't you say I should? We get along now, and sometimes she wants to do SEX. I am carrying out your orders."

She took a long pull of her cigarette. "So I have said, though the interpretation is peculiar. Did she request it?"

"More like tell me to show up in a private room and wham, there she was all ready."

"The dragons say this had been going on for a while. Why did you not tell me?"

"We only began yesterday." Quite true, but she might have heard of the closet incident. She didn't bring it up, but she did narrow her eyes and flicked her astral tail.

"I've never minded your crushes much, Xelloss, but you must understand I am worried when it is this golden dragon who at last compels you to mortal activities."

"I would have to agree, my liege. It caught me off guard, but alas ... the temptation was too great. Here I am, involved with miss Filia." In a scheme.

After an icy pause, she said, "Tell me the truth about what you did with her."

"I already did, my liege. It was an act of bodily stimulation that causes a pleasant sensory overload. I assure you all is well and she will not break again."

"What about you? Can you actually handle having a sappy relationship with anyone?"

"I'm quite alright, thank you," he said, and since his fresh wave of victorious joy needed an explanation, he added, "I'm happy with the new arrangement, actually. Filia feeling fine isn't that bad, actually."

Never had he seen her so disturbed about him. "I do hope you are going to add something to this statement, like an assurance you are not  _eating_  her positive emotions."

"Why ever would I do that?" he asked.

"Luna Inverse has spent some time eating negative emotions, it did not do her any good. That we eat negativity only is not merely a matter of tastes, you know that. They are poison to us, you cannot afford to be addicted to them."

"I'm not eating her positive emotions, just ehm, appreciating them from a short distance because they contribute to other fun things," he said. Quietly, he planned to eat some just so he could later claim he'd been experimenting.

Fooling his liege and creator shouldn't be fun, but it was. He would not get a taste for positive emotions, but this? He just might.

"You are dismissed," she said, doubt stronger than ever.

**· · · · · · ·**

Killing Filia without permanency wasn't as easy as casting an immorality pledge. Her ghost actually had to be  _out_  of her body for a certain time, in case anyone inspected whether she was alive. The other four of the group seemed confident it could be pulled off with a pledge because Filia knew how to get back into her body, somehow.

It took some prodding, nagging and incessant sitting on furniture that people meant to use for other things than sitting, but Filia eventually told him how.

Three years ago, when Lina and her group had invaded the Eternal Queen's castle, Filia had vanished half way through, something had exploded and a few hours, Filia rejoined the party by crashing from the sky with Luna on her back. Xelloss hadn't spent much thought on it, he'd been too busy enjoying the biggest traumatic breakdown Lina had ever had (that he'd seen, anyway).

Apparently, the whole reason Laust had scheduled the event at that time was because Liliane would be busy with Luna. Liliane had an interest in subtracting power from knights; now it made sense why she even had one of the hosts of Shabranigdu. She had used the host to experiment with it, her goal being to take the power of Siephied out of Luna for herself. This process would have erased Luna's identity, so she had fought it and inadvertently attracted Filia's attention. A channel has two directions and Filia had training in picking up godly input. Luna had, unknowingly, screamed across the astral plane.

So voila, Filia pops in and messed up the ceremony, and both of them died. Not in the intended way, so they kept their identity and went to hell until they figured out how to climb back to their bodies through the channel. Filia's status as channel was partially physical, apparently.

That explained why Filia had lost her last faith in the gods around then. Megiddo had only a road to hell, and heaven didn't exist at that time. It sounded like he'd missed something very interesting, but Filia refused to say more than detached facts.

The pledge itself was performed without ceremony or vow. He just put the bag before her and nonchalantly, she put her tail on it. Their pledge stone was the buckle; inconspicuous and not likely to get damaged first in case of a fight. The magic formed a blueprint of her current body and that was it.

An immortality pledge did not really heal anything. Rather, it formed a molecular blueprint of the entire body after being given access to the soul. When the body was damaged, the blueprint activated to restore the original state by fabricating something like projection from magic. Due to this method, most contracted lost track of their organic needs over time. He'd have to remind her to eat and sleep well, but for now, death was on the menu.

Filia's soul would have to migrate out of her body for a duration of at least an hour if not more. To practice her migration and reintegration, Xelloss would kill Filia a few times in private.

Jillas covered the furniture with cloth in between fussing over Filia, who repeatedly assured him she'd be fine.

Once the Aqualord teleported him out, he said, "Given that I'm at least part of your trauma, it would probably be best you don't see me do it. We wouldn't want you to be too conspicuously startled by me."

"Just get on with it."

So, Xelloss stabbed his staff through her heart.

Filia's body dropped to the ground, where they'd laid a blanket to absorb the blood. It still twitched when her ghost shifted out. Megiddo's light crossed the astral plane, outlining her.

"The death we put up for show will be a lot more gruesome," Xelloss said. "I'm thinking about stabbing you through the stomach the way Valgarv did, to indicate I'm in one line with him."

She nodded stiffly.

"We'll keep this one short, get back in."

She ghosted back in and he sat the pledge to work. Only to hold it close, leaving as much healing to herself. Filia's own magic could handle that and it would be better if she didn't walk around too obviously pledged. Devil magic radiating from her would be just that.

After a minute or so, her heart resumed beating, but she remained on the ground. Xelloss tried to see the holy magic bringing her back to life, but couldn't get a handle on it. Too much a matter of flow, and other holy tricks he did not know.

Careful, she stood back up, probing her skin and wincing. Devil magic might hurt her dragon body, but as this was only physical he couldn't tell. Maybe there was more to it, since her movement jerked.

Still, she said, "Do it again. Wait longer before reviving me this time, I need to know whether I can handle rigor mortis."

"The pledge should return your muscles just as they are, and rigor mortis won't happen till a few hours in anyway."

"Still, it's best if we cover our bases. The moment you've crossed over, I need to be able to explain everyone what really is going on. I don't want to have to do that while patching up my own lungs."

"Fine with me," he said and killed her again.

**· · · · · · ·**

Half an hour later, he revived her. This time the process caused her noticeable pain, probably due to the chemical processes and stiffened muscles. It took almost twenty minutes to heal her body well enough that she could move just a little normal.

She smiled, despite everything. "It's working. We can pull this off."

"Yes, but should it take this long for you to heal?"

"I have an inherent deposit of holiness. I can feel it slow down the pledge magic, it doesn't blend enough, so I'll be here for a bit. Why don't you be useful and get me a book?"

He so badly wanted to say he wasn't her errant boy and get a small sip of her delicious irritation. But, well, they had an agreement, and it wasn't like he objected to book carrying in particular. Besides, it'd be the height of immaturity to kick a fuss over this.

That did not mean he was going to hand her one of those dreadful sappy novels that she'd been reading to fuel her act on the emotional faking front.

Deep Sea Dalphin's cult had a little library, meant to give them the illusion of being well cared for. Xelloss found he couldn't actually read most of the titles. A worldwide magic made languages understandable as long as it had the same roots thanks to an old sorcerer and flow spirits, but it did not extend to  _written_  languages. Filia probably could read them, though. Learning languages was a beloved time killer for dragons.

Having only cover images to go on, he skipped anything that looked heavy and serious. A few shelves down, he found a small novel that reminded him of something Luna had said.

When he returned, Filia had regained enough motion to turn herself over. She lay on her stomach, trying to flex her fingers. Those still didn't move as they should. She was disappointed, but quickly stopped when she sensed him approach.

He sat down at her side and deposited the book before her. "Is her majesty satisfied?" he couldn't resist saying.

"Cat stories? What an idea for a book." With a chuckle, she opened it and was absorbed. Judging by the emotions she produced, anything but savory to Xelloss, the book was a big hit.

The healing flow kept working on her. He tried helping it along, but found that as always, holiness was one thing he could not really influence.

On a whim, Xelloss ran a finger over the tip of her ear. She tensed up.

"Can you feel that?" he asked.

"No ... not as good as I should," she said, pushing away the fright with a deep breath. "I'm sure it will be better soon, once you're gone."

Forever she'd have that grating tone that just irked him. He wasn't going to leave now she said that.

Any form of caving to Filia felt like losing, but maybe that meant he was spoiled. He didn't typically run into creatures that got under his skin. It just had to be this one he had to get along with. The Lord of Nightmares wasn't merely capricious, She was mischievous and ironic.

He wasn't sure how well he liked this specific push of chaos.

"Why do you want me gone anyway? I'm not bothering you right now."

"Oh good, so that means you admit to bothering me at  _other_  times."

He took offense to that, but made a minor pause because the  _what if_  was back. Filia annoyed him too, that was a fact. Did she do that out of frustration, arrogance, competitiveness or a desire to hurt him? He actually had no idea. Tasting emotions didn't tell him how and on what they fit in the mind.

Xelloss wasn't good with figuring people out by understanding how they thought using intellect alone. He only had a thousand years and a sharp eye for patterns of behavior. Filia was easy to tickle in some aspects, but he'd been wrong about her more than once.

"Why do you think I'm so annoying anyway? I'm trying to be polite and you're always acting like I've done the opposite merely by existing. It would be great to know what philosophy lies behind that, yet you have infinite patience for  _others_."

Filia groaned. "Oh heavens, not this. I'm not going to play Who'se Worse."

"This isn't a game," he said, knowing full well it was a quiz instead. Those weren't covered in their contract. "I don't understand you any more than you understand me. You're going to need to put some effort in this too."

She dropped her book and gave him a most incredulous look. "What?"

"I told you my greatest secret, yet you're refusing to even slightly tell me anything about you," he said.

"You ... Just because you told me something doesn't mean I owe you! It wasn't a trade, I didn't ask for it!"

"I think it's only fair."

"Did you just get me a nice book so I'd be extra peeved once you started annoying me?"

"You're avoiding the question, miss Filia."

She slapped the book shut. "That's not the point, Xelloss. You know damn well you're infuriating. It's the one thing you're good at."

"Oh my. It must be bad when you resort to such language," he said. "Regardless, you don't get to determine the point. I started this conversation."

"Then what is the point?"

Now he backtracked on everything he blurted out, he realized he'd left it out. He wasn't annoyed she wanted him gone in itself. Countless people wanted that. Old news. It was two more things. Her, and the other criminals that she tolerated, in relation to him.

"Why do you want me gone from your life, but were ready to invite Valgarv in when he's done worse than I ever did?"

Bringing up Valgarv jarred the tranquility out of her and replaced it with guilt, shame, regret and misery. He took it all in, and found one strand of (for him) the most bitter taste. She still cared for Valgarv?

"This isn't like what you did when you told me your secret, it's not going to make anything better. It's like you talking about how you once wanted to make me fear you."

Oh, that was enough to know she'd probably tell him something disgusting.

Here was Filia, epitome of eccentricity and everything a dragon wasn't meant to be, yet somehow she had a fixation on the one who opposed everything she represented, both by her standards, and those that Xelloss valued. It made no sense; felt like a stain on an otherwise intriguing phenomenon.

"I need to know whether I won't find myself before Valgarv only for you to turn out to  _still_  be his devoted martyr," he said sharply, and left out what he wanted her to be like.

"You're just going to have to gamble, then."

The idea of working with her seemed absurd in this moment. He could just get up and go to Zelas, tell her everything and forget about it. If he couldn't trust her not to fall to him at a crucial moment, it was madness to even try.

Barely had he thought this or Filia cried out. Spasms took over her body and darkness leaked from the wound. Light broke from it, like fraying threads. Dark magic binding the body of a holy creature resulted in pain whenever they tried to be both. He should have realized fusion magic was what allowed it to work on a dragon in the first place.

Swiftly he broke the bag's buckle. Filia relaxed at once, letting her forehead drop on her arms.

"I'm sorry," he said.

"Sure you are." Filia propped herself up on her arms. She took a few deep breaths and refocused her energy to take over the wound, continuing her healing at a better pace. Then she pulled her book closer and continued reading.

"Don't you want to know what caused that little accident?"

"I'm healing. We'll try again later," she said, still with that detached tone. She didn't use Rezast at the moment, but still dissociated.

"Well, I'm explaining it anyway. Whatever you've got with Valgarv is wrong and I don't get it. He's a traitor to the Lord of Nightmares and he's planning world wide genocide, yet you seem unable to hate him as much as I do. I ... it's also frustrating me that I don't know how to carry out my liege's order, or whether I'm doing it right, or what I'm becoming."

Filia just turned a page and didn't look up. "Nice to know that we might lose fusion while facing the enemy because  _someone_  is emotional."

By now, he almost was accustomed to her not riling up against him. He hated the lingering, exhausted acceptance in her, but he couldn't change it except to make it worse.

Xelloss had always been perfectly aware of when he hurt people, he just didn't  _do_  anything with that information. Now it mattered, he realized he didn't even know what to do with it.

She gambled on him as much as he did on her, but in different ways. She probably had to reason with and force herself through whatever misery would eat her otherwise. For him it was easy to interact with her now that she didn't call him names anymore, except when it came to this one thing; not hurting her in some way.

His hand hovered near her shoulder, either to pull her hair, or maybe just offer support. The latter was a move that he'd seen thousands of times in the human world, meaningful to them but not him. He drew his hand back. There was no space for comfort, which he did not know how to give and which she could not receive as sincere from him.

He conjured up steaming tea instead, not that that helped driving about the founding question : what the hell was he doing? Trying to understand her, or just carry out the Beast Monarch's command? How did this tie into his hatred for Valgarv and everything he represented? He couldn't tell where any lines lay, anymore.

Whatever the case, he wasn't called a jack of all trades for nothing. He'd figure it out, himself and her as well.

Might as well start with the obvious. Xelloss asked, "Can you translate one for me?"

"No. You'd just ruin it with your tasteless commentary."

"I promise I won't ... it's be entirely tasteful criticism. I sat through all of your sensory lesson, didn't I?"

The scathing laugh was enough of an answer. "I don't know why you'd care for cat stories unless you're making same vain attempt to be congenial. Quit it, it doesn't work when you do it."

Sheesh, how did Luna even manage to talk to her when he and her were both evil by Filia's standards? Okay, she had no massive body count that included, by proxy, a god, nor the inclination to inquire how likely it would be to kill another god as the start of their relationship. But, it probably also mattered that Luna had an idea what Filia needed to hear.

"Miss Filia ... what do you need?"

"Peace."

Aside of the typical irritation, Xelloss got awfully close to feeling powerless again. He loathed that, so this was a good time to actually give Filia the peace she wanted. He stopped projecting. If not for the astral walls making it harder to move, Xelloss would be out of the room already.

"Hey, where are you going?"

He stayed on the astral plane, knowing she could see him. Only his voice he pushed into the physical sphere.

"You said you wanted peace."

"Yes, but I meant between us."

He tilted to the side, not sure what to make of that. Again.

Filia grew impatient with the lack of response. Pushing against stiff limbs, she sat up. "Look, I'm giving you another chance, you ... oh, take a pick. Just in case it does improve our fusion magic. We can do something fun together, but not at my expense."

"Oh? And what would that be?" he said as he projected back onto the physical plane.

"You won't like cat stories, but I have another idea. Six centuries ago, our order wrote several books for humans. They were meant to enlighten the wicked ways of humanity. Get one of those and I'm game for mocking them. Maybe after that, we'll see about sabotaging Ospirias. I don't like how he talks about mister Jillas."

"Now that I'd be happy to assist in," he said, though he didn't know what had changed. If lines existed at all, they had to be a big tangle of nonsense.

**· · · · · · ·**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for this mess.


	36. Luna's Sense

**· · · · · · ·**

Luna liked a rhythm to things. A certain neatness, a definite order, a balanced social hierarchy. Okay, so the last one had become a mess, but that was exactly why the latest problem needed addressing. It reminded her own mess.

Hence, she had invited Xelloss and Filia for tea.

"I don't get it," Luna said as she leaned on Filia's shoulder. "Not that I'm complaining, but I don't get it. You ditched your temple when you learned they committed genocide. You forsook the gods when you learned heaven was a lie. You cut  _into_  gods when you figured out they used mortals as pawns, though I guess I nudged you a bit on that one. Whatever the case, your damn principles are taller than the hallowed itself. Where'd they go in the way of  _him_?"

"Miss Luna, given the circumstances of how you arranged this conversation, I don't find you a reliable ear," she said.

"Desperate times, ditto measures. You're avoiding me. Can't even get into your dreams anymore. Gods know I tried, Rangort's snooping around my head and that needs to stop. Yet when I try to ask you for helping kicking them out, you're always unavailable."

"I decided I value my privacy," Filia said.

"I'm told Rangort learning e's are going to die is a problem. You can bear to help me, if you can deal with whatever shit you do with him for the greater good."

"I feel like the greater good has become very complicated as of late, but not the kind of complicated that justifies this. You tied us up for this?"

Luna brushed her bangs aside and stared wide eyed at the magic rope she'd used to tie Filia to the chair. "Oh my goodness! I did tie you up! Wow, I learn something new every day."

"Aren't you a little possessive?" Xelloss asked. He too had been tied up in a chair, but for him she'd used Zelas's chain, so it worked on both planes.

"Yes. Yes, I am. You two are the only powerful people in this scheme who do not hate my guts. I'm a wee bit short on allies, you see. Can't have you two ruin each other."

"My apologies, but you are very wrong. I may not hate your guts, but I strongly disagree with the angle of your left little toe," Xelloss said.

"Xelloss, you're intolerable," Filia snapped. "She can't help the angle of her little toe! If there's anything deserving of hatred it's her abuse of the priest hairstyle. Straight cut should remain the indication of a reliable helper of the needing, it is already bad enough  _you_  go round looking like a priest."

"At least I actually  _am_  a priest and fully intend to be perceived as such. Miss Luna's hairstyle is a passive aggressive spiting of the system."

"Pfffft. You don't really pull that off, clown. None the least bit mysterious," Luna said. "I'm having a hard time believing you actually seduced Filia."

"What do you mean? I'm very mysterious! Only one person without astral senses ever figured out my identity!" Xelloss said, affronted as a little kid.

"Kin isn't fooled by kin, or was that person something other than Gourry Gabriev, infamous jellyfish brain?"

"Ehm, anyway, who said anything about seduction? She asked for it," Xelloss said. "You know, you're unusually attentive late, miss Luna. I didn't expect that."

"It's the liquor. I can't afford for you to ruin each other."

"You're beginning to sound like miss Lina," Xelloss said. "Always covering up her heroic acts under the guise of vices."

"Don't be ridiculous. Those go hand in hand perfectly well," Luna said.

"This is not heroic  _at all_ ," Filia said.

"Aww, and here I hoped an intervention was a step in the right direction."

"Honestly, miss Luna, I can choose my relationships on my own."

Luna rapped a knuckle on her head. "Sans your fancy list of criminals you're friendly with, there's also the fact that I have you tied a chair and we're no less friends for it. I'm the last person whom you can convince you have sound judgment, miss Martyr."

"I'm quite happy like this, thank you very much," Filia huffed.

"Happy with the relationship or the chair?" she asked, mocking when she really wanted to say Dilgear had been happy too. That's how he ignored the pain and humiliation.

She wasn't even sure whether what she felt was guilt — there was nothing to measure it by. Maybe it was just fear, now she understood she could lose something she wanted to keep if she handled it badly.

"Well, if you really want to know, Xelloss killed me. Several times. Given those circumstances I'm wonderful," Filia said.

"Ah hah," Luna said. "Killed you. Right. That's why I'm worried. Prude little you using bizarre euphemisms like that. That and the you're needing euphenisms at all. Really, Filia, what are you doing? You're not in love or I'd be having a feast." She rapped Xelloss on the head. "This guy isn't either."

"Well, we're not, I guess," Xelloss said. "But I'm under orders to keep fusion magic functional so I just play along with miss Filia. She seems content."

"That's liberal. It's the highlights of the game that make it worth it. Sadly, they're sparse," Filia said through gritted teeth. "Xelloss isn't the best. He only cares about his own enjoyment."

"Now you're just stretching the truth, miss Filia," Xelloss said, sincerely offended.

Luna was at a loss for words. Something  _had_  changed between them, but it didn't taste like a fling. They were ... cautious, somehow.

Not that Filia going bonkers was unusual given her breaking, but Luna had been convinced it'd involve Filia throwing herself at Valgarv in a desperate bid to play bandaid on his feels and redeem him that way. Make his woes go away. Xelloss was the opposite, being so happy with existence he had quit natural devil instincts.

Wait ...

"Filia, please tell me you're not thinking you can redeem Xelloss."

"That  _would_ explain a lot," Xelloss said. "A lot of people want me dead, I'm certain you can hand me in to redeem a hefty cash prize. Miss Filia, you disappoint me! You are already filthy rich, you have to resort to such low brow tactics like selling out your allies?"

"Low brow? There is a war and I have not been in touch with my corporate executives for too long! There is no telling what has become of my business! I need all the money I can get!"

Luna turned a chair around and plopped down before them, leaning her hands on the back.

"You're not answering, Filia," Luna said. "He's not going to be a better person."

" _You_  got better. I heard you call mister Dilgear by his real name."

"He also left because the shit I did hasn't magically vanished from the past. I'm betting big bucks you're going to regret this just as hard as he did sticking with me. You're going to wake up, if this doesn't kill you."

The sad look on Filia's face belonged to someone who had already woken up, so why did she act like this? Anger was something Luna didn't lose to her powers, normally, but this time it snuffed out very quickly. Perhaps it wasn't anger, but helpless frustration. She could drag her away from Valgarv, but she had no idea how to handle this.

"Wake up or die, is that really the end of the story?" Xelloss asked. "What about compromises? Aren't you looking for that by trying to contact mister Dilgear?"

Luna bit her lip. She wasn't sure whether she actually wanted Dilgear back. Did she even miss him?

Did she miss Lina?

"Can you untie us now?" Filia asked. "Preferably before Xelloss and I start agreeing that  _you_ need an intervention."

They probably could do that. Ugh.

Just to needle them, she feigned to give this suggestion deep thought, while aggressively shoving away questions about hybrids and little sisters to the back of her mind.

"Miss Luna!"

"Yeah, yeah," she said. Without getting up, she commanded the chains to loosen. Xelloss shot away instantly, but Filia stood up calmly. With an odd spark of curiosity, she picked up the chains.

"Would you mind if we keep these?" Filia asked.

"Sure, but why?" Luna asked.

"It's just the kind of thing we were looking for. I intended to use light threads, but this will be far, far better," Filia said, handing her back one of the chains. The other she wrapped around her arm.

Luna waved her off. "Have fun."

**· · · · · · ·**

Ragrairyos was usually up north to ward off the chaos, directing dragons and protecting cities. Every so now and then she returned to the island. During these times, she sent power to Liliane, who could adequately give the impression the god was still up north, should anyone care to risk an invasion of Zephyria or Dills.

Luna could think of a dozen ways her presence would help along the effort to restore order, but they wouldn't let her leave. Everyone she nagged about it paid lip service to her being a potential target, but she got the idea nobody trusted her.

Rangort's itchiness about her she understood; her constant refusal to let the god into her mind stood out, especially now Orun had opened up to Valwin. Not so with Ragrairyos, who could make Rangort's curiosity a non-issue by just moving Luna up north,  _away_  from Rangort's very limited probing range. Maybe that would make Rangort suspicious, but if that was so someone could be arsed to explain it to her.

Too much liquor and too little to do meant she couldn't get rid of the pest of introspection. She would have loved to go north and beat the shit out of the devils that wreaked havoc, but they wouldn't let her do that, or anything else of use.

As her astral body began to render the effect of alcohol poisoning a moot point, she spent more time walking around and watching people. She made a weak effort to only eat positive emotions, but often she didn't bother and sometimes, she ate the wrong thing intentionally. Words like addiction floated around in her head, meaningless in the chaos.

She noticed she tended to circle the talisman storage, and cursed herself for it.

On the other end of the line was her sister, locked in some distant world, married to two hot people and holding down the steady job of being Chaos's favorite pet. She couldn't tell why her thoughts kept going there, because she didn't feel anything. Envy? Remorse? Guilt? Curiosity, that one she could feel. It stood out for being so unnatural to her. Luna had no drive to learn more of magic or travel the world, she liked staying home and have control. What was Lina doing now, what would she do once she returned? Without fear or anger or envy, she couldn't tell what really underscored it.

How would she even break this whole story to their parents? That's assuming they survived. Word had it they were safe in Zephyria, but that was a week ago. She didn't know whether she worried enough, but she should probably be a good daughter and send a letter. Writing it took a while, since there was no easy way to have it make sense even if she kept it to the bare facts.

_Hi, folks, turns out my little sister also hosts some deity and we're now at odds. She's going to make souls for all devils in the world and she actually doesn't like me. I made her act like she did, but I'm not not sure I can do that anymore without pissing off the creator of everything. Yeah, there is a sapient force behind everything. Oh, and Spot left. His real name is Dilgear and he now is a half devil chimera. Zelas offered him a spot in her pack._ _Also, Lina's married to two people at the same time. Can you imagine?_

_I died when I was so young that I cannot remember, and what walks around behind this face hasn't been really human for its entire life, either in body or mind. Behind my adherence to the law you might not have seen it, but I am a monster in such a way that I cannot even feel bad about it. Thought you should know._

Now rinse and refine until that was acceptable.

She ended up cutting a lot.

**· · · · · · ·**

Getting someone to deliver the letter wasn't so simple. The platform that connected to the station on the shore had to be activated by either Zelas or Ragrairyos, which only happened every few days. During these, in came people who had been cursed in such a way she could not heal quickly, as well as broken or emptied fusion vessels that needed refilling. The leaders of the dragon clans also sometimes came along to hold council over strategy, which was safest here; there had been a few incidents with spies.

Her best chance would be to get a dragon to do it, so on the day they arrived she went to their part of the island.

What with the astrally enforced matter, she couldn't see ahead far and the entrance was hard to find, so she just made a door — she started to really like being able to project giant claws.

Dragon quarters were rather quiet and she almost got lost, so she followed the echoing noise. From what turned out to be the council hall, an absurd amount of chattering came, all in human voices. Luna peaked through the half open door to get an idea what went down, without being seen.

A few of the monks were there, as well as Milgazia; not Azonge, he spent far more time up north.

The noise for the most part came from Ospirias and his ruby dragon bodyguard, who were leading an impassioned plea about ... proving that Dalphin's cult had more freedom that needed? Ospirias claimed they targeted him because they understood he was the greatest of the dragons.

Load of bullshit, most of the cult had been moved to the outer area and they couldn't break down walls; ordinary spells didn't work on this earth due to astral enforcing.

The monks and Milgazia seemed to just suffer through it, having given up counter arguing. When Luna threw open the door, they almost sighed in relief : finally a break.

"What's going on here?" Luna asked, and because she was Luna, everybody turned. That was usual, less so the sheer amount of attention she got. They all fell silent, even Ospirias. Waiting. Expecting.

Yikes. She knew that being holy had an effect on dragons, but this was absurd.

"You can keep talking, I just want one of you to help me deliver a letter."

To her surprise, Milgazia stood up at once and came over. You'd think one of the leaders had better things to do.

While they went outside, Luna told the group, "You can resume talking now."

"Please don't," Milgazia said. "They've been going on for three hours about this alleged poisoning attempt. Ospirias just won't let it go."

"Poisoning?"

"There's thread in all of Ospirias's food, he choked on it once and now is convinced it's a murder attempt."

Luna shrugged, and said, "Talk about anything except the threads," into the hall before slamming the door shut.

"Bet you didn't come out here just for my letter. Spill."

"Do you know what is going on between Xelloss and Filia Ul Copt? Are they actually involved or is this some sort of elaborate prank?"

"That's what Zelas thought when she heard you dragons talk about it," Luna said. "Grabbed one of her pack, he said she laughed her ass off at first. Then it kept happening  _without_  Xelloss telling her about it and she started asking questions. Could be she's in on it, I thought, so I asked them myself the other day. They, eh, ... they're doing it."

"I see. This worries me very much. Filia Ul Copt had assured me she had a handle on this situation, but I fear she no longer has. Can you not do something about it?"

Luna could think up a dozen ways, but they all involved the kind of thing she'd promised not to do anymore. That and some of them would piss of Zelas or the gods.

"Tried an intervention. She thinks he's changing and Xelloss sorta maybe seems to be trying ... look, I don't know. Xelloss has always been a little off, and it's worse since he and Filia reconciled. Anyway, can you deliver this letter?"

He took the letter, but felt a rather icky kind of dissatisfaction.

"It  _will_  go wrong. How can you be so unaffected? We are speaking of Xelloss. First he attacks us during the war a thousand years ago, then he helps us with the vessels on a god's command, then he attacks during the attempt to free Lei Magnus, then helps us in the torrents, then he attacks us again, and then he brings in Sailoon to save us, then the Aqualord's remnant says we should not work with them except then they show up to help us take over Elmegiddo and reincarnate a god. He's on our side, but why would that last? When his inevitable betrayal comes next, Filia Ul Copt will be the first to feel it."

Luna whistled. "And you guys are arguing about threads in food when you've got all this lovely theocratic whiplash?"

"Will you please take this serious?"

"Filia's as fine as she can be so far," Luna said. "Now, this letters needs to go—"

"A few days ago, Xelloss phased into our quarters, grabbed Sylphiel Nels Lahda without a word and took her along. We couldn't find her for nearly an hour; not even the Earthlord Rangort knew. Then she appeared when the Aqualord returned, tending to injured dragons as if nothing were wrong. She says that Filia Ul Copt had just needed to talk about Valgarv and we should not worry. It's very suspicious, if you ask me. Perhaps he injured her and needed a healer, and somehow threatened Sylphiel Nels Lahda into being silent about it."

Luna shrugged. "They're into kinky stuff and maybe that got out of hand. Sylphiel seems to know it's not her business, take a hint. So this letters needs to go to Zephyria, to the ... hmm, my city might be under siege. Make it the capital, to the quarters of the Siephied Knights."

"Perhaps Xelloss has both of them convinced that is what is going on."

Gods, this dragon was annoying. She almost tore at his astral form just to make him pay attention obey.

"You just worry about the war, okay?" she said with a icy smirk. "Get this letter to my parents, the Inverses. With the war going on, they shouldn't be hard to find."

"We have a correspondence managers for this," he said.

"And this person is?"

Inside the hall, the arguing over the imaginary assassination attempt had resumed.

"I'll show you."

Around the platform, army segments rummaged with the ill and the cargo. A few Sailoon soldiers were around with vessels, or as victims, but most afflicted were civilians. Quite a few elves with Zenaffa armors were around, apparently the black world's transport machine functioned despite their magical resonance.

Milgazia had to look around a little before finding their correspondent, a scruffy humanoid who was either a weird elf or an even weirder dragon in human form. Before Luna could order or intimidate him, she got a trunk shoved in her face, then a bundle of mail. For Filia and Jillas, he said, correspondence of a certain board of the factories and one Elena. She tried again, but now got a letter from her parents carefully laid on the stack in her claws.

Damn, now she had to rewrite her letter to account for whatever they said. She dared to bet that Liliane had already informed them of  _things_ , that would be just like her.

"This guy's rude," Luna said to Milgazia, but the dragon didn't respond. He stared across the hall, eyes a little wide and anxiety rising.

Following his gaze, Luna sat a group of people in Zenaffa armors, nothing unusual. Blond, black, brown ... a long black ponytail. His eyes and ears were hidden under a helmet.

"Weird, but not enough to justify your emotions," Luna whispered to Milgazia. "Spill."

"It's the way he moves. I know him," Milgazia said. "Lei Magnus."

The distortion and magic of this area made seeing across the astral plane difficult, but she  _should_  be seeing him if he had Shabranigdu attached. On the other hand, she knew Zelas could conceal herself by spreading her power out. Tricks existed to be less noticeable.

In the way some people sense when they are watched, the soldier looked back at them. Eyes still unseen, but the didn't need to : he vanished into the nearest corridor.

"Right," she said. Luna sank a little through her legs, added holy power to her movement and jumped clean across the room, right after him.

She ran after him, but Zenaffa flight was very quick and very quiet with the right kind of spell. By the first fork already, she had lost him.

Milgazia lingered at the

"One side, can't see Shabby. On the other side, that was very suspicious behavior of someone who definitely has Lei's pretty black hair. I say it's worth chasing him even if we're just gonna talk about hair care."

"But why would he be here?"

Right, that would be ... . "Change of plans, let's get Xelloss and Filia to cast a barrier around the talisman first."

"The talisman? Why does he want it now?"

"Later, later ... go tell your people to hole up. We don't want them in the way."

**· · · · · · ·**

Xelloss and Filia were in charge of fixing any broken fusion magic vessels, for which the wielders came to the island. Sometimes they made new ones from scratch, but most of the time they just fixed and refilled them.

They didn't meet anyone on the way there, oddly enough, but that made sense soon enough : Valwin was down here.

Their chosen room was a circular pit full of strange coral structures and water channels, with a kiln stuffed in a corner.

Valwin sat cross legged on the floor, Orun behind him with her hands on his shoulders. All around them were elegant pots and vases; typical to Filia's fusion vessel style.

Being near them unnerved Luna, because even in this state she caught some resonance from the god. More so, it was the ease with which Orun just shared minds; Luna had the odd impression of seeing her soul gates stand open in two directions, one for the god and one for the output for the vessels.

She shot Orun fierce look. So much racket over the other gods not being allowed to know of the deicide and she still took this risk?

"Miss Luna, is there something you wanted?" Orun said with an even voice, and no fear.

"Yeah. Where's the lovebirds?"

Valwin pointed to another room, apparently where the newly made vessels were put to dry.

Only Filia was there, fussing over arrangement plucking little devil fish away from sensitive material.

"Hello, miss Luna What's the emergency?" Filia asked.

"Nothing big. Just Lei Magnus," Luna said.

"That's all? If he has those Zenaffa armors, the gods can just control him," Filia said.

Filia wasn't surprised in the slightest, in sharp contrast to Orun, who only avoided a yelp by covering her mouth. Even Valwin felt something like alarm.

Luna tilted her head, her bangs falling aside so she could get a clearer look at Filia's face. Where was the easily panicked dragoness? Nothing but impassiveness here. A little nervosity in her emotions, but overall, too little a response.

"Filia, are you on mushrooms? If there is a demon king on the island, we have to do something!" Orun said.

"Of course! Maybe this is a good chance to train your holy powers and see how far mister Valwin can work," she said.

Orun started to object, but Valwin said, "Sure, I suppose we can," with a shrug.

"Yeah, let's treat this like an exercise routine," Luna said. "We should let Rangort or Ragrairyos deal with it."

"I believe the phrase for our powers meeting is that they will go sparkly boom," Valwin said.

Beat.

"Don't listen to Xelloss," Luna said. "Anyway, where's the clown?"

"He's—"

The door swung open and Jillas burst into the room. "Gunmoll, we have a problem! That Lei guy ran across Zelas and now she's on his side."

 _Now_  Filia panicked.

Orun closed her eyes and focused, the next moment Filia grabbed Luna by the arm and dragged her out of the room. The moment she grabbed Jillas, she teleported off.

In between the flashes of teleportation bursts, Luna put together that Orun had used godly farsight to track and sent that to Filia, but mostly she felt very dizzy from the jumps.

Luna didn't recognize the passage they finally stopped in, but she did recognize the voices that came from somewhere far around the corner.

Zelas spoke, "Hui moez tas tu."

"What?" Xelloss said.

"Oh my. Unfortunately, it appears my priest does not speak that language. How deeply regrettable, it is the most swift sounding language that I know."

"Tell him in a language he speaks, in the normal speed of the lang—" Lei ordered, but right then Filia teleported ahead, alone. Within a flash she returned, Xelloss by the hand.

Sight and sense drowned in Filia's golden teleportation for longer than before, then whoom, they were in ... the kitchen?

"Don't wanna argue with leaving, but what are we doing  _here_?" Luna asked while trying to gain her footing. Jillas and Xelloss also were shaky; what was going on?

"I just went to the first thing I could tune into," Filia said.

"And you're intricately familiar with the kitchen's energetic environment because ... ugh, never mind." Xelloss had just started feeling peculiar glee.

"That was close, thank you," Xelloss said. "This wasn't exactly as we expected, did we?"

"What did you expect then?" Luna asked.

"Ehm, it is that I was thinking that my liege might want me to talk about my latest, ehm, games again? She called me away just before and—"

"Yeah yeah," Luna said. "You stay away from Zelas. Got any tips we can use to jar her out of command mode?"

And up the finger went. "She knows some tricks herself, but a change of scenario usually is very helpful. Much depends on how smart Lei is with the orders he gives."

Filia nodded, and Xelloss handed her his staff. "Here, perhaps we can do some remote fusion magic if it comes down to it."

Luna doubted that could work, but somehow the top of the staff flickered alight in white and black. Tapping it with a projected claw, Luna found it real : the claw dissolved.

"Remote fusion magic, neat. Something you invented to make hiding your closet adventures more easy?"

"Oh my gods, miss Luna, no!" Filia yelled, flustered at once.

"Absolutely not! Get your mind out of that gutter!" Xelloss snapped at the same time.

"But you're having so much fun in the gutter."

"Eh, yes, well, this really isn't the time, is it, miss Luna? We need to save my liege," Xelloss said while Filia just went red as a beet and muttered to herself.

Like virgins from the village of piety, except for Jillas, who tried not to laugh.

Luna shoved Xelloss in the magical fridge, which had extra fortification of the magical cold kind. With any luck, if Lei was interested in obtaining Xelloss, he'd ask Zelas for _reasonable_ hiding places.

Barely had they done that, or Ragrairyos projected into the kitchen ... wearing the form of Lyos, but without the matching liveliness or fierce expression. It disturbed Luna for moment, before she cut that emotion away too. That just left her somewhat unsettled.

"Valwin and Orun had gone ahead to block the way to the talisman's storage, but Lei Magnus has diverted direction. His armor is not activated and he had found a way to block my messages to it. Come help me stop him," the Aqualord said.

" _Ahem_ ," Xelloss said from the other side of the fridge door.

"And subtract Zelas Metaliom," the Aqualord added, just a little impatient.

She engulfed them in her golden glow and transported them across various passages, the jumps only a little further than Filia could manage. They still went with a hundred meters at a time, but it felt slow in this maze.

Zelas had somehow left a trail of beige fur and feathers, simulacrums kept together with magic rather than actual projection. It amused Luna to imagine the grand lord had taken the time to learn this trivial skill.

Less amusing was that Lei had already found the way to the talisman's storage — of course, he could just order Zelas to tell him where it was.

Lei stood one level above it on the other side of the entrance, casting some spell while Zelas clawed at the physical floor. Pieces of shell and coral flew around, sometimes hitting Lei in the head until he told her top quit that. She stopped doing anything at all, and he had to clarify he meant she should keep working, but not hit him anymore.

Luna and Filia crouched behind one of the seaferns as quiet as they could be.

"What's he doing?" Luna mouthed.

The Aqualord answered by writing in the air. "It appears he's casting holy magic and giving the energy to the armors. If he'll add in his own darkness, he'll have fusion magic of his own. He's preparing more than he needs to, a waste of time. If I come close, I should be able to compel the armors back to me."

Lyos acting this calculated and stoic was ten degrees of wrong. She couldn't not notice it.

"Is he not gonna notice you before he gets close?" Luna asked.

"I've loaded power the equivalent to four times you onto the soul of Lyos and control it from a distance. More I will not take lest it risks damaging the island's support structure. I want him to underestimate me, so Luna, you lead the attack. Filia, use fusion to cover for us, if you can."

Filia and Luna nodded.

Just as Lei ordered the armors to loosen and holiness gathered in his hands, they moved.

The hall where Lei worked was a enough to hold a dragon, so Luna used to space for a show. Wings out and tentacles wide, she burst out a whirl of white fire.

"Hey Lei, coming in uninvited again?" she said.

"Zelas, attack them," Lei said, eyes never leaving his work.

"Yes, my lord," she said with a strained voice. She drew both her swords and moved to attack, and in the same motion tossed one sword to Luna, who caught it easily.

Now Lei looked over his shoulder. "You are not to do anything that would assist them! Summon it back!"

"Yeeeeeeessssssssssss, mmmmyyyyy—"

Taking a hint from Filia, Luna infused the sword with her holy power. The hilt sprang into darkness first, then whirling white flames licked free.

"Not her sword anymore," she said with a smirk.

"yyyy lord, it appears I do not own any devil swords that I can summon back."

Lei Magnus cursed — how human — and ran for the nearest passage. Luna shot after him, but Zelas blocked her effortlessly. And harmlessly. Whether sword of cast energy, whatever they threw at each other just ... absorbed.

At least until Zelas physically threw her against a wall, following Lei's command to get a move on it already.

This time Luna hadn't been prepared well enough, letting the full brunt of spiky, coral littered walls scrape her open. Herself dammit. She grit her teeth and refused even a squeak.  _Still too human_.

Filia was at her side at once, carefully pulled her off the walls. Her words of healing drifted off, the effecting in almost without it. Strength returned to Luna's numb limbs and the wounds closed. As the blur of pain faded, it hit her.

She held a fusion magic sword.

"Damnit!" Luna groaned.

"What's the matter? Did I hurt you?"

"No!  _This_! This is the matter!" she said, holding up the sword to show the fusion. "It means I don't  _hate_  her as much as I  _ought_  to."

"That's all? One just needs a shared goal, I managed it on flimsier reasons with Xelloss." Filia finished her healing and pulled her to her feet.

" _You're_  an foolish freak of compassion who would feel sorry for Shabranigdu if he looked at you sad."

"Foolish? There's nothing wrong with my being willing to help everyone!"

They glared at each other for five seconds, then Luna snorted. "We're both foolish. My goal apparently wasn't ' _let's hurt Zelas while I have the chance_ '."

"Begging your pardon, that's not a bad thing," Filia said. "Maybe it's just a side effect of your general decision not to hurt people on a whim."

"I hope so," Luna said. She flexed her arms, found them functional and looked at the passage where Lei had gone. Crazy dragon. Crazy  _me_. Come on, let's go save our devils."

" _Again_ ," Filia said with a sigh. "They better pay us back triple."

"Do we have a plan?" the fake Lyos asked, impatient. "Lei spotted me too soon."

Luna ignored it and said to Filia, "Let's not rely too much on that thing there. When we find him again, throw out a load of Siephied's magic to blind him on both planes. "

"That should be possible," Filia said. Luna almost told her she'd gotten the idea from her first meeting with Zelas, planning to crack a dry word about bad starts. She didn't. This all left a sour taste in her mouth.

The fake Lyos led them again, until they found a hole left by Lei and Zelas. They'd circled around and gone to the entrance, where Valwin still was.

They jumped after them, just barely catching up.

Valwin was impervious to most that Lei could throw out on a small scale, but Orun wasn't immune to being hurt or blinded. That was exactly the risk Lei meant to take, throwing himself right at the god and hoping to land a blow.

No time to waste.

Filia spread Siephied's power out. The moment Orun realized what they did, she joined in with her own holy power, or perhaps Valwin's. Right then, the shield turned opaque.

Luna dealt by projecting multiple physical eyes, while Lei only had his own human two.

He felt a little awe at that, but not enough to distract him.

With all of Shabranigdu's power at his disposal and no need to hide, Luna stood no chance, but she could dodge and he hardly knew where to aim.

He was still human, and Luna not quite. And Filia wasn't human at all.

She teleported right behind Lei Magnus and rammed a fusion staff right through the armor around his chest. For one moment, Filia had more of Valgarv and his lances and that cold look. Then Lei staggered and convulsed, and the armors cried out, and now she hesitated.

Didn't matter, this opening was all Luna needed. She struck her own fusion sword in the front craft, right where the staff had come through.

Unlike Filia, she had no qualms in making it a physical attack as much as it was astral. She bore in the sword and twisted it before pulling out.

Blood gushed over his robes, and he hated it. Her. Shabranigdu moved on the astral plane, but only in tandem with Lei's emotions.

Lei fell forward, losing blood more than a human could manage.  _Not human enough._

"Zelas, stop fusing magic with her!" he gurgled.

"I cannot," Zelas said. "I would have to stop agreeing with taking you down."

"Then be silent," he said, sounding more tired than anything.

Luna relaxed, if only a little. "Now that you're here, why not answer some things to make us like you better? Why did you seek us out on Wolfpack Island?"

He cast a look around, at the impassive demigods and the one dragon, who wasn't quite moved enough to heal him just like that.

First he had to force magic into himself to get a working windpipe again. After a few tries, he could talk normally again.

"Xelloss acted suspicious during my release, so I was curious. And to my surprise, there was a talisman. I imagined I could use an angelsblood talisman to repress Shabranigdu," Lei said.

The sympathy Filia felt had to be snubbed, so Luna said, "He's lying. He could have told me that right away when he arrived, he didn't."

Filia nodded. In truth, Luna wasn't so sure, but she didn't need a hesitant Filia right now.

"This is how it'll be, Luna? Too bad. I meant it when I said I would have liked you as my ally."

"Y'know. Gambling on the devil I know and all that."

"Is that why you never left Zephyria?" Lei asked.

Ah, they were going for mind games now? Luna knew this shit from the job market already; never used on her but once. Always on the weaker. What an insult!

"Nah, I just didn't feel like it. My little sister already does her job keeping the world steady, doesn't need me too."

"Really? Tell me, what was it like, finding out you were the knight of Siephied?"

She'd always been aware of her unusual powers, but its source had been obscured for the first years. Always taught to honor the gods, even though most of Zephyria knew the barrier prevented any prayer from being heard and Ragradia was dead. And then it proved that the supreme god was dead too, and she had part of his power at her command. The world looked like a crowded mess and she was the only one who lived it, but if Lei was angling for misery based on theocratic crisis ...

"T'was funky."

Lei stared, Filia stared, the Aqualord made a face and Zelas was clearly not forbidden to grin.

"Funky?" Lei asked.

Luna pressed her lips together in a mock serious face, nodding solemnly.

"Stop that, Zelas," Lei snapped.

"Nah, I'm deeply impressed with your attempt to unbalance a stranger."

"Don't play me for a fool. You are not without conflict over your situation, and a stranger no longer."

"Well, I have some sort of epiphany. It turns out I wouldn't trust myself with my life, if I were someone else. If we're alike, I better not trust  _you_."

Lei sighed, and he felt regret. "Then we are nothing to each other."

"Bad postman, that's yesterday's paper."

Like the Aqualord had waited for a silly punchline, her construct broke through the floor. Its hands brushed across the Zenaffa, closed around the hostile tendrils and ripped them off within seconds.

It  _destroyed_ them, rather than subdue.

Shit. Lei would have nothing to lose.

"Wait!" Luna called, but it was too late.

The moment the armors were off, Lei pushed his full power out.

Filia spread out fusion around them, while Luna projected everything she could, gathering the organic close to her. With her wings, she shielded against the collapsing ceiling.

As rock and coral piled up around them, only the noise of the fight reached them. It went on for a few minutes, but grew lesser along with the diminishing devil radiance.

Gathered under their shield wasn't just Orun and Valwin, but also Jillas. Huh, had he been around the entire time?

"I think we gotta dig," Jillas said.

"Yes, and before the air runs out," Filia added. "Heavens, how did the day go to this?"

"I can tell you how in fine detail, but it's not gonna help us get out," Luna said. "Get to pushing and burning, miss dragon."

Filia did most of the heavy lifting, while Orun directed Valwin on incinerating smaller rock areas without blowing up all of them.

Once the first of the top rocks were shoved aside, a ray of sunlight fell in. Damn it, the fight had taken several levels down. Luna pushed Jillas and Orun out, let the cavity collapse and remanifested her sword.

No enemy to be found, though.

"Where did he go?" Jillas asked.

"Who knows? He got away with the talisman," Filia said.

Wait, what?

"She's right," Orun said. "There used to be this flow from the storage, it's gone now."

Great. They'd played right into Lei's hand. They fight had broken down the walls for him, and the Airlord had been put on hold to avoid clashing with the Aqualord.

"Just the news I hoped to hear," Luna said, and it  _wasn't_  entirely sarcasm. Whatever happened now, talking to Lina was off the table for a while. No chance of accidentally doing it. "So, where did our devils go?"

They climbed up from the wrecked halls right into a cloud of hatred. Not for Lei, he was nowhere to be seen or sensed.

Dust and fog clouded physical sight, but across the astral plane Zelas could be seen clear enough. Looming over her was Rangort, tall in the sky, and Ragrairyos just a little lower. They spoke in dragon languages, all grunts and whalish tones.

"Hey, Filia, get up here. Wanna know what they're saying."

"Just a minute!" Filia called up. "I need to heal a little."

Luna didn't feel like waiting a minute, so she grabbed the nearest dragon, using a projected claw to pull his neck down. "You. What's the duo up there arguing about?"

"Eh ... whether to kill Zelas. She is a huge liability if both our enemies can just waltz in and control her. Earthlord Rangort is in favor of killing them, Aqualord Ragradia is not."

"Good boy," she said, patting the dragon on the snout before tossing him away.

Lei had apparently forced her to fight again. Zelas's injuries were too severe for her to even move right, half her physical body lay to shambles and hung loose from her astral self. She tried drawing back entirely onto the astral plane, but could not. Xelloss was close to her side, but Luna could hardly tell him apart from the whirling darkness of his mother.

Dragons had lined around the crater, anxious, fearful and reverent to their gods. Hopeful, even, to see their ancient enemies die.

She rocked back and forth on the ball of her heals, ignoring tickling speculation about what she might be cutting off herself.

Now she wasn't in the middle of a battle, she could think. Right now, helping Zelas was not imperative to survival. Rangort could without a doubt wipe her out. Ragrairyos could control the machine, now she was whole. Maybe not as well as Zelas, but she could learn. Probably.

However, killing Zelas would make it personal to Xelloss, and  _he_  was necessary. Xelloss was the eternally obedient pet of Zelas. Unlike Dilgear or herself, he'd been made to obey and love it. He was capable of loyalty and so he was capable of loss. Luna could not feel loss, not at its full weight. She'd known its dread for seconds, maybe.  _He_  couldn't cut it. Was he human, or wolf, enough for that to matter?

Meh, she had different payback in mind anyway.

Luna climbed up the ridge where Zelas hung and whistled. She put a sharp astral sting on the sound.

Rangort deemed it fit to have a head with eyes and mouth today, which e looked down with on Luna.

"Hey, if you want any of my dogs, you gotta ask nicely," she said.

"It's not your dog, as you are aware. What are you playing at?" Rangort said in classic monotone.

Luna leaned on Zelas's head and reveled in the anger that its source could not act on. Zelas wasn't stupid, she knew a card in her favor.

"You don't know, worm? Tis my dog now, right, Poodlywoo?"

Had Zelas been anyone less sharp for survival, that would have gotten Luna her head bitten off, but all Zelas did was growl in irritation. Xelloss stood by, both eyes open and full of anxiety. He had a little holy magic at the ready for teleportation, but Luna doubted it'd get them far in this area.

"Deal's like this, who ever's got the most power is the owner. I bore the chains before, but now she's on my turf. Seeing as  _I'm_ your best shot at brewing a new angelsblood talisman, I dare say I hold a lot of power right now. And I want my dogs, a good delivery of fine wine, and no lizards in part of the island unless I permit them."

"The talisman is gone?" Rangort asked.

Ragrairyos shifted a little, then confirmed it.

Rangort still had to argue, of course. "Zelas is a liability that we cannot afford, whether it be what the voice of Shabranigdu can do, or whatever game she plays with you. I can tell what you cannot about yourself. It is sick."

Now that got Luna riled up. Rangort had been poking in her emotions all the way to its roots. Not to help her figure out, but for leverage.

Luna wished she could get her subconscious to cut away anger on command, because Rangort wasn't someone she could live it out on. With a sneer, she continued.

"I'm a liability too. Sure you noticed. Guess what? I'm gonna be very sure I cannot trust  _you_  if you off my dog over  _a possibility_."

Rangort peered down at her, feeling little but confusion. Ragrairyos spoke again in their inhuman tongue.

Rangort hesitated, produced some doubt, and then just poof, gone. The surrounding dragons murmured in disappointment, but Xelloss let go a breath of relief (literary and figuratively). Only Zelas didn't feel much different.

Luna leaned down on Zelas a little harder. "You owe me for a third time, Poodlywoo."

"I am well aware, Lady Corpse, but we shall see whether Rangort remains in this position," Zelas said, shoving Luna away with a wing.

Zelas shook out her wings and drew them close. With some effort, she managed to stand. Xelloss offered to support her, but she denied. Without another word, she staggered into the nearest cave. Xelloss stayed at the entrance and turned.

"Ehm ... thank you, miss Luna."

"Don't sweat it, I'm sure you'll repay me royally."

"Of course," he said with a smile.

**· · · · · · ·**

Luna hung around doing nothing, again, until she got a hold of Orun and ranted at her for staying linked to Valwin despite the risk. Orun had a decent reason, actually : she had Valwin convinced that the incident of Luna cutting off some of his power was an accident. Rangort thought Luna and Orun had invented it on intention, but Valwin wouldn't let Rangort snoop in Orun's mind. E wasn't interested in probing Orun's mind for secrets, so far, but her suddenly denying the god help might just inspire that kind of research.

Not really a good cause to be angry at, unless she wanted to draw attention.

Luna spent the rest of the day kicking people out of he destroyed area. To her surprise, this was easy : most people had already been grouped away during the attack. That would explain why Lei had gotten around so easily, but the lack of casualties was still interesting. Did that mean Lei avoided killing people?

Xelloss and Filia could be found in the kitchen, again. Filia did an unusual amount of eating lately, though she didn't use magic much. Luna considered tasteless ways to comment on that.

"No Life Law, you promised. Try chocolate," Xelloss said just as Luna walked in. Judging from Filia's emotional cloud, the topic was guilt. Huh.

Xelloss held up a can of chocolate chip cookies. A little suspicious, not half as much as the ought to be, Filia took one.

"Why do you object to Life Law purification but  _not_  chocolate?" she asked.

"I suppose because chocolate works from the other end. The spell takes away something you already are, while tampering with brain chemistry just means you avoid developing something."

Filia rolled her eyes. "We are never going to agree on this."

Luna walked by and snatched the can, claimed three cookies and tossed it back.

"That's a bit rude, miss Luna. You could have asked."

"This was quicker. So, where's Poodlywoo?"

"Please stop calling the Beast Monarch that!"

"Poodlywoo Muffykins may file an official complaint at the court of Zephyria on behalf of regulation 42, regarding misconduct of Zephyrian Knights. After the complaint is processed, I shall formally proceed to not give a shit."

"Ah, the wolf pack is irritated by cutesy names as well?" Filia said, most mischievously. "How very excellent to know."

"Miss Filia!"

"Don't worry, Xelloss. It'll be a last resort. Anyway, why do you need to talk to the slimy hairball, miss Luna?"

"Duh, we're gonna brew a new angelsblood talisman, right? Gotta talk to her about the incubation method," she said while twirling the chain magic around her fingers. "Chain aside, last time they had me dance on a magic seal. We're not gonna do that again. Got all these ancient memories in my head."

"A flow dance? Are you sure? They're the most easy and efficient way for this kind of magic," Filia said.

"Maybe, but I'm gonna look for something that doesn't put me on display."

"My liege is down in the mesh hall," Xelloss said. "I really recommend you drop the nickname before approaching her."

Luna waved it off. "I survived doing worse to her."

Leaving Xelloss puzzled over that, Luna walked off without a hurry. She experimented a little with her projection on the way. Ideally she wanted to hover the way astral beings could, but she hadn't quite figured out how to just ignore gravity.

Near the central cavity, Dalphin had designed a diner hall for her cult. Coral lined the walls and long rows of chairs circled into a spiral towards a shell platform; there was no easy way to get seated without a long walk. The wall had holes to the kitchens and dim, eerie light came from a marine chandelier. It had been meant to impress and the imprison.

Zelas sat alone near the walls, the sole occupant of the hall. When Luna closed the door, she looked up.

"Hey, Poodlywoo! I figured I'd come to celebrate my storkhelm syndrome. Got any wine to spare?"

Astrally, Zelas bared her wings and flattered her ears, but her human face stayed impassive. "No."

"Sure?" Luna said as she sauntered closer. "Storkhelm syndrome not nutritious enough to you?"

"Go away, lady corpse."

"How about no? We have to talk, Poodlywoo. I hear it's good for getting along."

"Also excellent for getting along is calling people by their name."

"Fine. Zelas Metaliom, talk to me. Who knows, you might catch something unexpected before it happens to you."

"Is that a threat, Luna Inverse?" Zelas ran her finger over the edge of her glass, creating a sharp noise.

"No, just an invitation."

"Ah. What would we even talk about?"

"Plenty. What's it like for your mind to be controlled? I know you hate it, yeah, but not what happens to your thinking."

Zelas sat back. "You are unusually inquisitive. What is up?"

"Nothing really. Figured I should try to understand people a little better."

That got Zelas's smirk out. "Ah yes, the why is what comes to blindside even the most observant. Why would I give my enemy insight in myself?"

"It's gonna matter for the future. Do you know why Filia let in Gravos and Jillas despite their past crimes? She always said that what's important is that they won't repeat it in the future. I kept suggesting she put them to trial because they deserve it, but maybe I'm thinking too much in the past.

 _Now_ , I kinda agree with her, even if for different reasons. If I hurt the people who misbehave, I made sure they won't do it again in the future. I never cared for law because of justice, but it was useful to me. But now ... maybe I can get my own security in another way.

You are not the kind of person to start a war on a whim and what you pulled one me isn't something routine for you. If I get you, it may be easier for me to deal with you."

"Are you trying to forgive me?"

"Don't be ridiculous. I just accept that for now, I have to live with you and that I can do without losing myself."

Zelas gave her a blank look for several seconds, which might just be a mask that concealed deep thinking.

"Well then, pay attention. Motivation has nothing to do with a devil's command," Zelas said at last. "Have you ever heard of conation, Luna Inverse?"

"Nah. Sounds fancy."

"It is a term used in the study of the mind. While cognition pertains to knowledge and affect to the emotional, conation is the part that acts and drives. Instinct is part of it, and it becomes will in the process. Under normal circumstances, conation's form is the product of the former two.

With mortals, conation can be manipulated only indirectly by placing pressure on affection or cognition. You must do this to get that result, it says. Hand over that or you will never get what you want, it says. This is persuasion, deep down.

For devils below their creator, no such persuasion is needed. A command supplants conation entirely.

In other words, it makes us driven to perform the actions we are told to as if we want to, despite not being a product of our own minds. The link between conation and the other facets of our mind is severed. Cognition and affection still exist, but they do not matter on the new conation palced by the command.

You see, this forms quite the conundrum. My affect is such that I strive to exist and my cognition sees reason in serving the Lord of Nightmares rather than Shabranigdu, yet that does not matter. Free will is less free than we believe for all creatures, for both astral and organic a mere product of anatomy.

The only reprieve is that once a command has been carried out, my whole self exists unaffected. Meanwhile, it may be harder to supplant conation in a mortal mind, but once it is done, there is no recovery for them."

Luna didn't like how she said that. For them. As if there were no humans in her presence right now.

Worse yet, she started to get an idea why Zelas had flipped out after Luna tried cutting her emotions. Luna saw emotional alteration as soothing or riling, rather than a healing or mutilation matter. To Luna, emotions were something you  _had_ , rather than something you were.

"Did this make any difference for you, Luna?" Zelas asked.

"You didn't really talk about what it is like to live with, but it's good enough. I guess I hurt you first, back on your island."

"So you did."

"Could've explained it better, though. Anyway, why don't you tell this to the dragons? With one frilly exception, these suckers are under the impression you and Xelloss gleefully slaughtered the lot because you  _wanted_  to."

Zelas put down her glass hard. "No. They see the world by the dogma of sinners and saints. Should I claim to have acted against my will, they will frame me as a victim and expect repentance. I do not mourn the deaths we caused and I cannot experience guilt or remorse. Telling them this truth would make them believe something more untrue than they do now."

"It's not just about that. Most laws systems, save the most corrupt, would not hold you accountable for possession. Cause that's pretty much what it is. Let's say we all survive this, but you don't get to rule the world. You're gonna have to live in it and that'll be easier if people don't fear you."

"Now you speak of yourself," Zelas said. "It is no universal truth that a reign of terror makes life harder. It is only so for  _your_  person and  _your_  life. What does it have to do with mine? Perhaps it would suit me to harvest more fear than I am worth."

"Fear inspires complacency, but also revolt," Luna said. "It's something I've known, but not really cared to understand. Are you sure you're right about  _your_ position? Xelloss is already experimenting with what he wants out of the world. Got no ideas of your own, other than killing your dad?"

"Shabranigdu is not my father. We astral beings have no business with biology."

Luna laughed. "Really now? So says the woman who worries for her pack. You're already making biology your business."

"If this line of thought is your feeble attempt to understand us better, then let me ask you, do you understand your own kind at all? Does your sister talk with you? How about your friends? Oh, indeed. You have only one left. Surely her recent behavior baffles you."

"She just broke very hard, but I get her better than anyone. I've been in her head."

"And this means you understand what you saw?"

"You have no clue what dreams are like, do you? There is feelings too and dragons dream with sound and smell even more than humans. Sharing dreams is a conversation in itself. Bet you never even did that with your pup. Priest. Whatever."

"It should be patently clear I have spoken with my priest at least a million times."

Luna shook her head. "Eye to eye? Like equals?"

Zelas gave that a silence topped with grabbing the next bottle of wine from the wall.

"I dare you to do it, Zelas. Everything changes, don't be left behind."

Still that silence.

"What did you order him anyway?"

"To restoreit what made them lose fusion magic."

"How does it feel  _for him_ to be ordered around? Or rather, how does he think about it?"

Zelas froze on both planes. For a few seconds, her forms flickered and her emotions were something Luna did not recognize. When she solidified, the feeling condensed into doubt and confusion.

"I didn't tell him how, it was his own choice. Now they can do fusion magic again and I do not know what is coming. He claims he developed a way to understand her. It might mean more than he understands."

"More than  _you_ understand, I bet. Here's that new thing I said I might tell : when Filia was in Kataart, he came to Wolfpack Island to ask you what to do, but  _I_  talked him out of it."

The glass cracked in Zelas's hand. "What?"

"Persuaded him you were unstable and it was best if you didn't cop out. Granted, I had to hold him down before he listened, threaten to kill him and bind him by word, but yeah ... can he break vows for you?"

Again that silence, but the spike in stress gave Luna a clue. He could.

"How much can devils decide what the personality of their creations is like anyway? The gods are all the same bland fools, but the devil clan ... everyone is unique."

"We have some control, but in the end it is the pass of chaos. I believed I was a little wiser and so I created Xelloss with a pack instinct. Up until very short ago, this meant he had absolute loyalty to me. It would not shift to Shabranigdu upon my death, for Shabranigdu had never been one of our kind. A wolf will not join the foxes or the deers when all their pack mates die. At the very least, he would have been free."

"Yet wolves have joined humanity by becoming dogs," Luna said. "Worried you're losing control over him?"

"What if we already are dogs, and goes back to the wild?"

Maybe it was the alcohol, but that had Luna laughing. "Don't be silly. Not him. Not ever."

It was only about his mind, though. Luna tasted nothing good from Xelloss. The subtle love he'd once felt for his mother was there, but with gaps. Faltering and accompanied by resentment. It tasted eerily like Spot as he was on the brink of betraying her, while still caring. Then again, what did she know? Not even herself.

Zelas didn't speak anymore, and for a while they just sat there. At one point Zelas just vanished, and Luna felt none the wiser.

**· · · · · · ·**


	37. Jillas's Multisense

**· · · · · · ·**

In the grand scheme of things, nobody noticed Jillas. The dragons pulled up their nose and humans brushed past him like they did with all small beastfolk. The gods? Valwin hardly cared for anything, Vrabazard floated around the island and Rangort was too busy hovering around Zelas and Luna, and trying to get to Orun, to see whether hir suspicion was better applied elsewhere. Zelas herself? Busy with the machine or organizing her pack to selectively aid the war.

Jillas might as well not exist to all the big names, which was fine. Attentive eyes might notice something odd about him.

Nothing overt — just that he himself was a tad more attentive than he could be.

Even astral beings couldn't look  _through_ other astral bodies and guess what, Jillas just happened to have an unused eye socket. All Claire had to do was some sort of healing stuff that had it grow shut physically, and voila, they had the perfect place to hide the stolen angelsblood talisman.

They had considered taking it off the island, but the moment Claire's power left the flow, it would be detectable. Plus, if she kept up the flow, Rangort would notice, not to mention the devils that would be on Dalphin's island. Thus, Jillas was the designated carrier.

He didn't really get what all the fancy magic stuff it was for — they didn't summon Luna yet, cause that would make the talisman noticeable at least to snooping Rangort. And then Rangort would be curious about Filia's secrets and that would be bad.

Until the confrontation with Deep Sea Dalphin, he had the perk of pretty awesome eyesight. It made him rather suited for sneaking around the machine and learn how it worked, but right now it landed him the job of guarding the kitchen. Leyunso had convinced the cooks they were already done, using her weird contrary way, leaving Xelloss and Filia to mess with the food.

He wasn't sure why. It had started about Ospirias being obnoxious (he agreed, that dragon had no respect at all) but now it was just about winning. How they would be winning was up in the air, since there were no rules. Regardless, Filia required his knowledge of drugs and guard service today and he was happy to oblige.

They'd been working pieces of a rug into the food that Ospirias would receive, but since Xelloss tried every day to mess with Milgazia's food, it took time to be done. Filia constantly had to pay attention to what Xelloss did.

Once they had recreated the quiche that Ospirias had ordered (more like demanded), Xelloss pulled the remaining stump of rug from his impossibly spacey satchel. Dangling it between two fingers, he asked, "Mister Jillas, would you do the honor? It's your pride that we're avenging."

"And we're not avenging  _your_ entertainment, ..." Filia said.

"Kitchen trash," Jillas said.

"Thank you, mister Jillas. Again, Xelloss, mister Milgazia will  _not_ be targeted. He did nothing wrong and you know we can't work the whole rest into this one quiche. The honors of the final part will be tomorrow and you will not shove half of that into his soup."

"Right," Jillas said. "Besides, if we mess with Milgazia's food, that'd risk Memphy getting the bad stuff as well."

Xelloss made a disappointed noise, but didn't make a fuss. Jillas shredded half of the rest off, worked it through the dough and added a sniff of gunpowder.

Half an hour later, the three of them hid behind an outcropping of elkhorn coral in the dragon's dinner hall.

Once healed and done counciling with the gods, most dragon leaders returned to help up north, but Ospirias spent most of his here. Milgazia joined him every now and then, serving as intermediary between him and the other leaders.

They talked, Xelloss twitched from boredom, and nothing happened.

Ospirias looked very sour, but kept eating. That was it. For a few days now, he refused to burst out over it.

"Do you think he figured it out and refuses to budge, or is he just that stupid?" Filia whispered.

"I think he's that  _stubborn_ ," Xelloss said. "Are you sure he's not a distant relative of yours?"

"Who knows? I have fifteen eligible female relatives, maybe he married into our name recently," she said with a faux-innocent smile.

"Well, sort seeks sort, I suppose," he muttered.

"I know. After all, you are  _so eager_ to work with  _me_  on fraud."

"That has nothing to do with your stubborness," he said.

"And everything with passive aggressive criticism of my old self. You know, we wouldn't be here if you and your mom had gotten off her throne and—"

"I know, I know," Xelloss said. "Must you keep bringing that up?"

Filia just barely stiffled an irritated groan. Vexed sounds had to be their new way of irritating each other. Jillas, as always, felt it wise not to interfere.

Just then, Milgazia reached over to Ospirias and snatched a piece of his quiche.

"That's maroon now ... I think I recognize these," he said. "It's all the colors of that rug that used to lay in this area."

" _He_  wasn't supposed to do that," Xelloss whined.

Ospirias didn't burst out into another rant, but he did burst out of his chair and ran for the toilet. Filia smiled in satisfaction, but Xelloss didn't.

"Are you going to let that one tiny sentence ruin it for you, Xelloss?" Filia asked. "So it was mister Milgazia to deliver the punchline, what of it?"

And that was enough for a heated argument about mood management. By the time they had walked back to their quarters, they were still at it.

"Hey, can you make me hear  _less_  instead of farther?" Jillas asked Claire while she teleported them back into their room.

"Hear less?" someone asked from the couch. Someone named Luna Inverse.

Frantic, Jillas twitched his hands in a denial gesture. "Less ... less of their bickering. Figured I'd try praying to ancestors."

Luna stood up, tilting her head to reveal an eye. "Huh. Didn't known vulpens did that. Not that I know'em down south. I guess it might be worth a shot, if they stayed outta hell."

"How did you get in?" Filia asked.

"Half the rooms in this place don't have doors, so I don't assume the lack of door means I'm not welcome. I broke down that wall," Luna said, pointing at the area behind her. It looked like it had crumbled and was badly put back in place.

"You should have asked," Filia said, stone cold.

Luna shrugged. "Sure, kick me out later, but I did come for a reason."

"And that would be?"

"I really hoped to catch you in a compromised position." She held up the frayed pieces of a rug, which they's shredded while experimenting how much they could put in before the servers noticed. "But what do I find? These. Lying  _on the floor_."

"Ehm ..."

"You used to be so tidy, Filia. Now look at you! Clearly the sex is getting to your head."

"That is not why!" Filia snapped. "That has nothing to do with— anyway, it's really none of your business."

Luna held up her hands. "If I thought that, I'd have stopped you from sabotaging the kitchens. Say, is pranking jerks is your version of foreplay?"

"Oh my goodness, miss Luna!  _No_! Not everything is about sex."

"It's starting to taste like nothing's about sex."

"I don't have reproduction aiding inclinations of any sort, you see. Unless I choose to project the associated biological system I don't experience anything," Xelloss said smoothly.

"That and it takes a lot for him to get me in the mood. And by that I mean a lot. He's really bad at it, especially when starts talking. Not only is his voice all wrong for enticement, the things he says are ... pfff." Filia waved her hand dismissively, a smug look on her face. "But he's getting slightly better."

"What do you mean slightly? I—" Xelloss started.

"I don't need that much details," Luna said. "At least not on a tea visit. I have something more fun to talk about."

She pulled out a set of small crystal spheres from a bag. "Did you know in Zephyria, we got vision recording spells? So useful. I overheard dragons complaining. Their archives are being raided by members of Zelas's pack."

Xelloss scratched the back of his head. "You noticed that?"

"Being drunk is getting weird, I don't sleep, I'm not sure I still have a stomach, propioception is off the charts and my sense of time passing has become closer to objective. Translation :  _bored_. Needed diversion. Desperate enough to try talking to non-Filia dragons. And lo, I figured out a way to be entertained. If you guys are into dragon talk, wanna hear what they say about your gutter activities?"

"Absolutely not," Filia said. Xelloss looked more eager.

Not that anything they could say would stop Luna Inverse, who had already begun setting up the crystal recording balls.

Ten minutes later, Filia had launched into a verbal tirade about a particularly nasty rumor. Xelloss kept his dignity a little longer, but only until he was compared to a human sewage drain.

"What? You  _are_ basing a relationship on sex, bickering and the idea that merely loving each other is enough for a happy ending," Luna said, sporting a wide grin. "They're not off by far."

"Are you kidding me? I'm this close to breaking up with him," Filia hissed.

"Why don't you?" Luna asked.

"We can't really avoid each other right now so why would we bother? I'm sure our next encounter would just result in the same as usual," Xelloss said. "In fact, we—did that dragon just claim I'd die if I felt anything positive? How do you even explain the glee devils get from a good meal?"

"Marry an upstanding dragon from the second holy order, I should? Pffft, I'll stand him up at the altar," Filia said.

When they mocked the propaganda, they at least had fun, this was just tiresome. Sometimes he felt like the only adult. Jillas got up to go do something productive, like preparing a fireworks bomb to hide in Ospirias's closet, and maybe one for Azonge too (he didn't do closets, but that could be worked around).

To his horror, Luna followed him into his workshop. She shut the door behind her, and Jillas hair went on edge.

"What do you want?" he snapped.

"You've got a good nose and are all over the machine lately," she said. Crap, had she noticed? Jillas was scooping out the details of the machine and—

"Where is Dilgear?"

"What?"

"Don't play innocent, you gotta have smelled him somewhere. Where is his lair?"

"They don't let me go everywhere," Jillas said, right when he got a good idea. "I asked gunmoll whether she could help me get to the interesting parts of the machine, but she just says later all the time."

Luna frowned. "Is she okay?"

Jillas scratched his head. "Can't you tell?"

"Not if she's cutting away emotions of her own."

"Uh ..." What was he supposed to say? He hadn't been instructed about this and Claire was quiet. Maybe just stick to the truth. "She's afraid sometimes?"

"Then why does he ... never mind. Try to find out where Dilgear is before the invasion, okay?"

He crossed his arms. "No. I don't take orders from anyone except gunmoll."

Luna looked very much like she'd hurt him for that, but he didn't budge.

"I just need to talk to him."

Jillas shook his head. "No, you don't. You don't deserve any loyalty from any beastfolk."

"Fine," she said, and slammed the door behind her.

**· · · · · · ·**

A day before the invasion, Filia was a clutter of stress pretending to be fine. Xelloss made a point to be around her just to eat it. He did nothing else, useless git that he was.

Filia had to be strong and so did Jillas. They'd have to kill Valgarv because he had become the kind of person who laid waste to towns and countries.

If it hadn't been Filia's plot and words, Jillas would never have gone along with it. But it was Filia, whom he had seen broken by Valgarv in Kataart. When he'd walked through the bloody halls, Jillas had dreaded to find Filia in a similar state as the injured around. When Luna and her had wandered into her nightmares of the death of his town, they had brought along a perspective Jillas hadn't wanted, but needed to acknowledge.

He'd called Valgarv kind, but kindness wasn't as simple as whether or not you let someone survive.

All of Jillas's old family had died in the genocide of the vulpen. He had a new family new, who could die just as well. This time, it would be by Valgarv's hands.

With every step, faith in Valgarv as a good person had fallen away. Valgarv had a choice and he turned it for the worst.

A massacre lay behind this whole game. Filia laughed and acted and messed with Xelloss, had difficult conversations with Leyunso and argued with Claire over the right way to rule. She distracted herself, but he caught the wistful look in her eyes when the distractions wasn't around. It'd gone away over the years, now it had returned.

Perhaps seeing her like this made it easier to forget about Valgarv as his lord and savior. Valgarv was driven by rage and pain, but when he saved people it was conditional on their goals. Jillas had worked to pay him back and lived by devotion. That's how it went with Valgarv.

Filia scoffed at the idea he had to pay her back for anything. She put him to work in the shop because capable people had to work to earn money. Now, it wasn't for money but the world. For the same reason as before, and he knew exactly how and why.

Valgarv had never told him what he planned to do with the light weapons.

That morning, he decided to say something he'd needed to say.

Filia had taken to the kitchen, humming below her breath as she made breakfast. Like nothing was wrong, but he knew better.

"Hey, gunmoll. Y'know, I've been thinking about Valgarv a lot and I guess ... he wasn't really that nice, actually."

Filia's stopped in her track, her smile faltering. Carefully, she put down the spoon and lowered the magical fire.

"How so?"

"Like ... I dunno why I'm saying this," he said, ears drooping. He climbed on a chair and went on anyway. "I mean, I get it. What we're doing now. With the red fox tribe, we honor the loyal. We're told to choose our leaders wise and I thought I had it right with Valgarv. My people also believe in never forgetting, and he was so strong. Worth it just for that, y'know. He knew exactly what to do.

I admired him a lot and when Garv's servants all ran out, I was proud to stay. But ... some things weren't really nice. He'd sometimes leave us behind. He told us to obey without thinking about it. Sometimes we were in danger. I didn't really like it either when we put others in danger. Like ... looting's one thing but we didn't kill people just like that.

Now I'm thinking about everything. He tried to kill us all, right? I don't get why. I didn't want to die and I don't really hate Lina Inverse. None of this makes sense."

He'd turned into a sniveling mess the more he talked, despite having resolved not to.

She put her arms around him. Jillas wasn't one to deny hugs, but this one caught him off guard. He returned it anyway. When they broke apart, he noticed she'd been crying too.

"Was this a bad idea? Me talking?" he asked.

"No, I think I needed that," she said while drying her eyes. "It's better to deal with grief than let it grow into something else."

"Like Valgarv did?"

"Maybe, but I don't think I'd ever become that. Mister Jillas, you  _have_  tried to live by vengeance. How does that feel?"

"I dunno whether it counts. It's what Valgarv did and I just followed, but I guess at the end, it wasn't real enough that I'd die for it. I thought I had to ... and before I got the the dying part, it really felt great. There's this rush that replaces being sad, y'know. But the sadness just comes back when the anger's over."

She smiled, but didn't look like she'd ever fully be okay again. He wouldn't either.

Filia had all these things like guilt and responsibility that were beyond him, and she brought along complicated friends. He didn't feel he'd ever really get it, but when it came to just this, he was here for her. When it came to the red fox tribe's loyalty, he could do far worse than Filia. He'd done worse, in fact.

**· · · · · · ·**

They never got around to the final part of the Ospirias rug saga because Claire decided to use him as general. He never showed up for his fancy food.

Not that it mattered. He needed all his time on adjusting to, well ... a god inhabiting his new eye.

It would stand out of Filia died, and Claire didn't feel at least a little bit bothered by that. She would be hover all over the island, her emotions readily accessible to any devil who could smell.

Claire split her whole body into two pieces, her true mind going into the talisman, while the rest of her power remained outside. She couldn't be out of the talisman without that part merging with her again, but she could program it to behave a certain way before leaving. The whole thing was a simulacrum like Val Ul Copt, albeit without the same expertise. Claire couldn't quite pin down Volphied's finese, so at best it was a very advanced doll.

Val hadn't been real, they'd told him. Filia said it over and over. They'd make him real, but send him back into Valgarv ... how was he going to explain this to Molly and the rest of their family? That was what bothered him in quiet hours. He was glad that for a day or so, he had no silence : now Claire was inside his eyes, all his senses improved. He avoided thinking about family by focusing on how quick he could found all the coral on the walls.

**· · · · · · ·**

The next morning, the shores on the northern part of the island were filled with busy dragons and elves. From shore, they would first fly to a small set of islands; teleportation over more than a few hundred meters was too risky in this unstable area. From there, they'd teleport to another set of island, and then some more.

Jillas had gone a similar route nearly eight years ago, when Valgarv brought him to the world's center to work on the machine. He hadn't needed to do much other than instruct Almayce on local materials, and the journey became a moot point once the station had been built on the eastern shore.

It hadn't quite sunk in yet he'd helped maybe destroy the world. Nor how exactly this was going to save the world, but everyone else seemed to know what they were doing.

Mostly.

Xelloss hummed too happily, while Filia paced anxiously across the central. Her constant stream of anxiety and scent of fear made Xelloss's scentless cheer all the more obscene.

"Y'know, you could at least try to be less obvious," Jillas said.

"I can't help it! This is the where the fun part starts!"

"Pffft. This is all water business and you're the biggest reason for that," Jillas said.

"As he said." Hearing Claire's voice from inside his eye was weird, to say the least. "Before we leave, why don't you add in a final helping?"

"Oh come now, that's not necessary, right?" Xelloss asked. "I can't stand this game any longer."

"There's the solution," Claire said with a satisfied thrill. It was really weird how her voice had so much difference now she talked right in his ear. "Just think about all those embarrassing things whenever you get inconveniently happy."

"Are you gonna manage hating her enough?" Jillas asked. "You gotta feel hatred, right?"

"Not necessarily," Xelloss said. "I didn't hate her all that much in Kataart either, but if push comes to shove, I'll just imagine Valgarv talking about rebelling against the Lord of Nightmares."

Jillas balled his fists, both because of how he talked about Valgarv, and the fact Jillas had once not questioned what Valgarv did. Somehow that made Xelloss chuckle.

"All set?" Xelloss asked Filia.

"As much as I can be," Filia said.

"Great, then let's do our best at being our worst."

"Just don't make any frog faces."

They spent twenty minutes arguing about whether frog face counted as a violation of Filia's promise.

**· · · · · · ·**

Invading Dalphin's island with a god on their side meant an easy victory. Just not very consequential. Dalphin could build another resort for her armies elsewhere; she had smaller versions of those already, elsewhere. Still, taking down the biggest one and preventing a part of the army from revitalizing meant enough for the effort to have value.

In the official books, Jillas only went along because he had bombs that could make the island more accessible. Dragons and elves stood out more than he did.

Unofficially, he was to release Claire at the right time.

Long range teleportation wasn't possible so close to the destabilized area, so they went to a little island closer to the north before they could teleport to Dalphin's island. For the most part, Jillas waited there until Claire #2 walked up and brought him along.

He stayed far from the actual fighting and nobody told him about it; Claire only mentioned that Dalphin and Zelas had come to blows somewhere below the surface. All he had to do was quietly sneak into spots and plant bombs. The island had no entrance points for organic creatures and Jillas's bombs were the only thing that worked to make holes here. The devil energy cancelled out holy spells and laserbreath carving drew too much attention and took too long.

Elsewhere, Filia and Xelloss began the build up their little charade. Just enough to plant the suggestion to the enemy that Xelloss was in a position with Filia that he didn't like.

The dragons had seen this for weeks already, they worried but didn't raise an alarm. They'd become used to it.

After making about five cave entrances, Jillas withdrew to the landing on the beach, which had been secured. It didn't take long before devils began to flee from the caves; Jillas couldn't see them on his own, but he could with his talisman eye.

Shortly after that, the elves began to bring out prisoners, which Dalphin had kept for torture. Claire #2 hovered above this place, healing, casting a protective barrier and teleporting away those ready for it.

Jillas helped a little with clearing space to make more beacons, but his attention was on the middle of the island. The closer the island was to being conquered and its prisons emptied, the closer the charade would be.

"Go a little further from the beach," Claire whispered in his hear. "Your anxiety begins to stand out."

Nobody cared when he wandered off to climb into a nearby grotto. There, Claire radiated her power from the talisman to observe the act.

In human form, Filia deliberately strayed from the group of dragons, suggesting she expected Xelloss to cover for her, or that she was simply careless. She came too close to the enemy and 'realized' the danger. Here she turned tail and tried to teleport back to Claire, she wasn't able to. Fake, of course, but Claire #2 had been programmed to claim her sight was distorted.

Nothing but open rocky land before Filia, until Xelloss blocked her path. He smiled, eyes wide open and feeling enough bloodlust to be credible. A few of the stronger devils nearby would be able to tell — Claire #2 had been programmed to stop shooting them down once their number fell below 9.

"Xelloss, what are you doing?" Filia asked, fearful but not yet terrified.

"Changing my mind." With one swift move, he ran his staff through her stomach. She screamed and fell back, tried to teleport away on reflex.

She only ended up in the middle of the air, somewhere above the ocean; also intended, and also to be blamed on distorted flow. Before she could fall, Xelloss appeared before her and ran his hand through her torso. Out on the other side, he clutched her heart.

 _That_  hadn't been in the script.

"Calm down," Claire whispered in his hear. "The pledge is still active, she will be fine."

Pffft, fine. He couldn't imagine she would be after this. No matter that Xelloss disliked the title of dragon slayer, he was worth everything it meant. Filia's cry was so loud that Jillas heard it even without talisman. Her hands turned to claws, digging into his shoulders as she sobbed. Xelloss looked up, while her head drooped.

He laid his fingers on her cheek. Up close it was clear they didn't really kiss, but from the distance it'd sure look like that.

"Don't you have lines?" Xelloss asked.

"Excuse my acting skills while I'm dying," she hissed through the tears. "Just get to yours."

"They're too corny."

"Really? Did you hear yourself blaring in a certain temple?"

"That was different. It was still true and I get to be a little dramatic when it's dramatic. It wasn't  _tacky_."

"Yes, it  _was._ And you didn't have  _scenery_ like this back then." She dug her nails deeper into his shoulder, drawing little flicks of black. "Go on, bleed me out."

The feverish look in her eyes dared him and what devil did not take such bait? Xelloss rarely grinned, but now he revealed his fangs.

"Well, alright then," he tried to grumble, but it came out eager.

Filia pushed away from him a little. "Why?"

Way too loud for someone who had their lungs punctured. Xelloss had assured them devils knew a way to keep victims alive a little longer and this wouldn't look weird, but Jillas wasn't so sure he didn't have fun with the immortality pledge a little too much.

"You even need to ask?" he declared. "Just as you cannot escape what you are, I am a creature of darkness for all times! You were a fool to expect otherwise, Filia."

Twisting his hand up, he burned up the fake heart and dug his fingers in her back, eliciting a sharp scream. When he loosened his hand, magic drew strings of blood.

"Nothing else to say?" he said, indifferent now. "Too bad."

He let her slide off his arm. Filia hit the water near the shore with an cutting splash. Xelloss just flicked his arm to rid it of the blood and sang.

_"Little dragon down the drain,_

_Won't play with me again,_

_Like your kin you've been slain,_

_Really, what else was there to await?_

_Devils do not love, who can you blame?"_

"Xelloss, what are you doing?" Zelas roared.

"Breaking free, Beast Lord."

"No. Expl—"

Deep Sea Dalphin burst between them, shooting a blue ray right at her. Her devil armies launched at the dragons at the same time, obligating Claire #2 to enforce her shield. By now it might be suspicious that the god didn't do more, Jillas caught a few whispers among the dragons. Surely the area wasn't this polluted by magic? Devils wouldn't know how well the god could aim, though. They might not even know why there was a god.

Knowing all that didn't stop Jillas from fretting.

Filia would be swept away by currents below the sea right now. What if a devil thought it funny to rip her apart? They'd find the immortality pledge and take her along to a worse fate.

Claire remained calm, though, and showed him Dalphin escaping from Zelas and taking Xelloss along. They went into the island, where she was at her advantage to Zelas, but not hidden enough for Claire's sight.

"Xelloss, tell me what you want," she said. Above them, Zelas tore down in the devils in her way, but she wasn't quick enough. Whatever she said drowned in the noise of Dalphin's demons and the thick walls.

"I wish to break ties with Zelas Metaliom and rejoin the cause of bringing about the end of the world." He took a knee before her to drive home the point. "Zelas has pushed me beyond my limits and I cannot stand it anymore. To have fusion magic, she commanded me to appease that damn dragon that she needed to revive the Aqualord."

"Ah, I see. Dark Star has told us that something peculiar was with her. Siephied's channel, he called her. I understand you would be sick of one such as that, but what eludes me is why you would rejoin us, while Zelas would not?"

"Zelas cannot believe our Mother wants to destroy the world because the Sage of Siephied, with her peculiar curse, has told her that she wants to. I am afraid she is lost to us forever. However, the Sage has never told this to  _me_. As Zelas had fooled you all, I have fooled Zelas into believing I had a thing with that dragon. This put me at greater liberty to go around than if I had remained hostile with her, so today I finally had a chance to escape. I had hoped you would interfere for me, and am grateful that you did."

"That would match the odd tales we have about that Sage and the fright that Dark Star exhibits for her — he fled for her that one time!"

"You might like to know that right when he fled, the Sage had come to the aid of the very channel of Siephied that I just killed. Without her, their future plans will be severely crippled. They have been relying on her capacity as a channel to refill fusion vessels as well as converting godly energy for use."

"Very interesting, but how about we discuss this at a later, safer time? Leave the island for the north, I will cover your retreat."

"I don't wish to inconvenience you, lord Deep Sea Dalphin."

"Nonsense, we are in dire need for strong servants. Now go."

"Gladly."

Xelloss shot off, while Dalphin went to confront and distract Zelas, who had wormed below the surface by now.

Claire stopped paying attention to this and whispered to Jillas, "Deep Sea Dalphin feels genuinely relieved to have obtained him, we have a success! Our mole is in."

She actually sounded excited, compared to the old Claire he knew.

"Now the time to get you out?" he whispered.

"Not yet," Claire said. "Set me loose once Dalphin and all her devils are gone."

The dragons and elves regrouped on the southern shore, protected by a shield of Claire #2's making. About two seconds after realizing they were safe, the dragons and elves broke into chatter.

"How else could this have ended?" Azonge muttered.

"I told her to stay away, but she claimed nothing was wrong," Milgazia said.

"Devils can't love, everyone knows that! It's her own fault!" another cried out, which prompted a wave of complaints.

"He calls himself the trickster priest, that should have been enough of a warning."

"Shame on you. She was a poor child, unprepared for a devil's deception. He had seven years to work on her, didn't he?"

"Can we tell them now?" Jillas whispered. Barely had he said it or his sight flickered to the astral plane.

Filia's body was still dead, her ghost nowhere near to be seen. Devils filled the currents, save for where Luna swam. Luna ... oh crap. She almost caught up to Filia's body. Zelas had apparently seen her dive into the sea, too.

Claire subtly pushed some devils in her direction, which she slaughtered easily, but at the cost of losing sight of Filia's body. Once she ran out of air, so she returned to the surface.

Jillas left the grotto as well, just in case some devils decided to hide here, now Luna was leaving.

The water broke open just as Jillas stepped back on the beach.

"I can't find her," Luna said between gasping for air.. "Ragrairyos, show me how to make an air bubble. I can revive her, but I need the body."

"There is nothing to save," Claire # 2 said. "He ripped her spine apart and she fell head first in the water. Her soul is gone already. Megiddo has her."

"No! She'd stay, she has unfinished business."

"What would she stay for?" Milgazia asked.

"This world," Luna said, her voice rising. "She can claw her way out of hell and drag others along, I've seen her do it," said with a scathing laugh, but she hesitated.

Claire #2 had by far the widest astral body here, and right now this body experienced rather negative emotions. The loss of Filia would mean the loss of a lot of other lives by proxy. Luna got a pretty hefty dose of negative emotions, and so would Zelas.

Luna's eyes fell on Jillas, almost like seeking confirmation. Claire #1 whispered him a script.

"I don't think so. It was always about lord Valgarv, though," Jillas said. "He was everything to all of us."

When Luna vented by kicking over a stone pillar, Jillas made himself scarce by crawling between the sharp rock wall. He wasn't the only one to back off, but only he was small enough to slip over to an inlet on the other side. He didn't do that yet, just perched on the side to keep an eye on the main beach.

"Hey, is it safe now?"

"Dalphin is not yet gone," Claire said, sounding a little irritated. "She has called for a retreat just now, they should be gone once her lieutenant reaches them."

That took nearly ten minutes, during which Zelas tried to get past Dalphin and chase Xelloss. It didn't work, but Dalphin was slowly driven back by Claire #2. When Dalphin finally vanished into the sea, Zelas just stopped. All her fury turned cold, and she asked the god, "What happened? What happened that my priest went mad?"

"Perhaps he tried too hard?" she said before diving after Dalphin.

Zelas stayed behind, flickering.

"I think we gotta do something now. That looks like when Xelloss tries to lie," Jillas said. "Can't be good."

"If I merge with my other part here and not on the island, the remaining devils will notice the change in mood. My emotions are all over the place with a body that large. Let it play out, it will be over soon. Zelas's well being is not a priority at all."

Zelas moved, now. She didn't project anymore, not that this helped the dragons with being less anxious when she landed near the beacons.

According to Claire, she was there to feed on the miasma of Dalphin's victims, but Jillas wasn't so sure that was all. She looked around in a weird way, like a cornered animal.

Luna must've thought something was wrong too, cause she wandered over and astrally tapped Zelas on the wing. "Hey, y'dealing with this?"

"He was supposed to be like me," Zelas whispered around her. "I made him that way and more than I am. His loyalty was to be with me forever. Of one pack. I am supposed to be the one more likely to falter — I was  _not_  created like this. Why did  _he_  return to Shabranigdu, why not I?"

"You can ask him all that when we catch him, and we  _will_ , right?"

Zelas didn't answer, and her astral form became hazy even to the talisman's sharpest sight.

Jillas knew rabid wolves when he saw them; the kind that lays in wait and strikes only when you get too close. He didn't like where this was going.

Zelas's head snapped up and fixated on a specific spot in the circle around them.

Milgazia.

Without projecting she lunged at him, one whirling mass of rage.

He'd be dead if Luna hadn't already been half in the path, ripping into Zelas's side on the astral plane.

On the physical plane it only looked like Luna randomly threw white fire around, but astrally it was chaos. Far stronger than Luna, Zelas tore through her shield and Luna let it. The delay had let Claire #2 teleported Milgazia out of the way already.

Blackness gathered in Zelas's jaws and she spun around, but just as she charged, a flash shot through her astral body. On reflex she projected, more forced than willing. Her form was massive and send the sand far up as she collided.

A single small sword had pinned her wing down, held by Luna. The blade brimmed with a dual black and white energy. It didn't budge, pulling only had Zelas rip herself.

"Oh look, this still works. Funny, no?" Luna said.

The moment Zelas took note of it, the sword dissolved.

"What's that about, Poodlywoo? Why  _that_ dragon?" Luna asked.

" _He_  started it. Because of him Xelloss considered defying. He must have realized he could ..."

"No, Milgazia didn't," Luna said. "Wait ... is this about the joke ... eh, I guess we do live in a world where words can fuck over minds."

"It is not words," Zelas said. "It is the first time Xelloss wanted to defy me and the first time she had power."

"That'd sound much more dramatic if I didn't know it was about bad jokes during ice cream. Also, Rangort helped out. She told me about it that night and I—Oh shit. Ehm ... listen. Don't go attacking any other dragons, got it?"

"What is it?"

"Maybe ... Maybe I, ehm, tempted Filia to learn messing with soul gates so she got a handle on Xelloss. And Valgarv kinda broke her, again, and y'know ... I'm not gonna say sorry, but don't jump to conclusions about chaos providence here. There's no Supposed To Be with a little trademark, and more ... y'know, me making choices. Wanna fight me, or are you gonna take care of yourself, you selfish bitch?"

Zelas flattened her ears, more defeated than aggressive, when Luna suggested there was no providence. She almost entirely deflated.

"The area is clear enough, my main body will return within half a minute and Zelas just clustered up. She's not paying much attention anymore" Claire said. "You may now toss the talisman in the water."

Finally!

Quick, he opened the patch, grabbed the shard and he threw it in the water. The world appeared small again and a dull pain remained in the socket, but he didn't care.

In the depths, Filia's body would be retrieved by Claire, using the talisman as a channel. It left a pretty noticeable trail, but that was okay now. Once Claire #2 was done chasing Dalphin away, all would be fine.

Jillas climbed back to the main beach, trying not to be too obviously relieved. He stayed distant from Zelas and Luna, just to be safe.

Luna had taken to kicking Zelas.

"Dammit, respond!" Luna snapped. "Don't you dare get upset about this. I bet he's just experimenting. You got your old self to compare your new one to, he doesn't. Maybe he needs to know some chaos theory of his own, whatever. What does it matter to you?"

No response.

"Come on, just stick to what you want to me. I'll make a new talisman and we get Luke and Milina outta hell."

"It does not hold any more meaning" Zelas snarled. "Everything has worked against me from the beginning, from the very beginning."

"Yet you want meaning, or you'd be joining Shabranigdu right now. Come on, is this just you being upset, or reason? If it feels hard to stick to yourself, I can make it easier."

Zelas looked up at last. A few seconds passed before she said, "Do it, but only a little. I will see what it feels like first."

"As it should be," Luna said with a grin.

Whatever happened next was invisible to Jillas, but Zelas stood up calmly. After brushing off the sand on her, she said, "What else can you take away? Can you make me stop caring about him?"

"Not roots. You're still gonna give a crap about your pup, but I can make it not control you," Luna said with a grin. She flicked a white flame on in her hand. "Wanna bet we agree on making sure Xelloss doesn't teleport anyone to Elmegiddo?"

Zelas held out her claw, releasing darkness to compliment her light. Jillas had seen enough fusion magic to know it.

Their shield covered everyone on the beach, as well as the returning main body of Claire.

Oh hell.

"Ragrairyos, we're getting out of here new, got it?" Luna said.

"Alright," the doll god said. The golden glow spread all around them, but only as far as the fusion shield.

_Oh hell._

It wasn't supposed to obey Luna.

Jillas broke from his shelter and ran up to them.

"Hey, hey, stop, it was all a game! They're—"

Jillas almost reached them, but someone hooked an arm around his torso and carried him off through the air. A wave of blonde hair and the woosh of wings hinted Memphis.

"What are you thinking?" Memphis whispered as she set him down a few on the other end of the beach. "Don't go near that, didn't you see? She nearly killed uncle!"

"It's about that. Gunmoll's not dead, it was all a trick and you just gotta wait for a bit till the other Claire returns," Jillas said, pulling her arm desperately. "We have to stop them! A fusion thingy can't be right!"

She pulled Jillas's hands loose. "What the ... oh, I see, some devil cast an illusion spell or something on you, right? Don't worry, we'll get that off soon."

Before he got another word in, Memphis cast a silence spell on him.

Not being noticed wasn't so convenient anymore.

**· · · · · · ·**

Jillas didn't run very well on a blank, and oh boy, did he have a blank right now.

He had no way of contacting the rest of the team. Claire #2 was on their mid way island but didn't respond to anything except rudimentary questions. She had an eerie tendency to follow Luna's instructions.

Zelas and Luna's shield didn't let up the entire time, blocking everything except the teleportation, which they permitted. Once they arrived back at Elmegiddo, that damn shield covered the entire island.

In the middle of distributing the injured and the freed captives, Memphis forgot to remove her spell from Jillas. By the time he found someone to get it off, Rangort had already fortified an extra shield. Jillas got a check up on that alleged spell, none was found and the caster shoved him out of the room without really listening.

And that was it.

Boom, every main player was now locked outside. Jillas tried explaining things to the important people, but barely got two sentences in before being shoved away. When they care to, dragons can be very intimidating, but he kept trying until Leyunso appeared.

She tapped him on the head. "Go on, they'll listen."

Jillas's shoulders slumped as the realization of how powerless he was hit full force. "What are we supposed do now?"

"Hmmm ... have you tried asking friends?"

"You just said nobody will listen!"

" _They_ will," she said while pointing at the surrounding dragons.

"Memphy doesn't listen either," he said.

She said nothing, just gently prodded him down a cave.

Orun waited there, to Jillas's surprise. He didn't remember the woman being part of the scheme.

"Does she ..."

"I've been informed," she said with a nod at Leyunso. "As well as she can. To be honest, I suspected something was up : I saw you when Lei tried to steal the talisman."

Leyunso walked past them, back to the secret room. Orun followed in silence.

"Hey, you okay?" Jillas asked. "Y'know, we would've told you if we could."

" don't like being left out, but I suppose it had to be. The Aqualord had split, right? Do you know why?"

"Gotta have real emotions. Claire would feel really bothered if Filia died, Zelas would notice if she didn't. Claire had the soul of the bluehaired guy still, we used that. Claire the real one was in the talisman, cause that's the only way to keep that split real."

"Oh."

Jillas didn't know much about how humans did loyalty, but he saw a person in grieving. He put a hand on her shoulder. "You did it right."

She gave a weak smile. "Let's just focus on making everything else go right too, okay?"

After a hurried walk, they reached the area where the sealed work room lay. It seemed to take her effort, but she teleported them both inside.

What now? He cast a desperate look at Leyunso, but she just shrugged.

"Can't you just make them disbelieve the wrong stuff?" he asked.

"There are absolutely no risks to that. Also, my voice works on Luna."

"That means it doesn't work on her. You can't make her believe or disbelieve anything."

"Your conclusion is wrong."

"So it's right. Got it. Zelas?"

"We shouldn't go near her," Orun said. "Right now, Zelas is furious and she's repeatedly talked about killing Leyunso. I can tell through the flow of the island, and there's another problem. According to Valwin, the gods are theorizing that something went wrong with Filia's experiments on soul gates. Rangort's figured out something went down that e didn't pay attention to. E's getting very, very paranoid."

Jillas slumped down on a chair. "We're in deep, deep problems."

"Can you explain me why?"

Not entirely, and Leyunso could only add sparingly, but Orun was smart enough to put the pieces together.

"That's ... terribly convoluted. Do we have evidence? I may be able to convince Valwin, but we need to be very careful because they consider Filia may have messed with minds. If Valwin gets the wrong idea about that, I don't know what will happen to me or everyone else involved. And Zelas worries that something more happened when Xelloss ... wait ... he tried to empathize? An astral being? Oh gods, now they're theorizing that miss Leyunso did something to him too."

"It'd be so useful if her curse was to make people  _believe_  her. Sounds like we now have a bunch of really paranoid deities on our roof. We can't mess this up, cause they can do a lot of things to us ... we gotta drop that damn shield somehow, but we need to be careful. And we need allies." He turned to Leyunso. "Is it safe to go fetch Sylphiel and Memphy?" Jillas asked Leyunso.

Leyunso shook her head.

"Got it," Jillas said. He jumped up and grabbed a remnant of the last prank. After Leyunso teleported him out, he followed Sylphiel's scent.

He found Sylphiel and Memphis in the armory. In a hushed tone, they talked about how to inform Sailoon, while Memphis thought it was high time to tell Filia's remaining family.

"Gunmoll's not dead," Jillas said the moment he was in range of Sylphiel's human hearing. "It was all a hoax so Xelloss could defect and plant a beacon thing to teleport Valgarv to be split up and made virally or something. Gunmoll was pledge stoned and she's okay now. Well, I think. I'm not sure what it means with the second Claire being here and the real Claire out there."

Beat.

"Are you on magic mushrooms, Jillas?" Memphis asked.

"No! I swear, it was all fake. Gunmoll and Xelloss just put up an act, when nobody watched they were friendly ... well, friendlier than normal and he screwed up a lot, but you get it, right? You don't really believe they had a thing, right?"

"Pffft, of course not," Memphis said. "But she wasn't healthy. Maybe you're not either. Maybe that Sage messed up your head or Filia did some weird life law things."

"I can prove it," he said, holding up the rug. "When nobody watched, we went into the kitchen and worked a rug into Ospirias's food. Just for fun."

Memphis grabbed the item. "Hey ... this  _does_  look like the threads that were in our breakfast."

Jillas nodded eagerly. "Yep, we did that. Come on, we gotta go talk somewhere private."

"This is all too weird, if you can help us make sense of this, I'd love to hear," Sylphiel said.

"Wanting to isolate us is weird," Memphis said. "I don't know."

Jillas grabbed her arm and put on his best pleading face. "Come on, I swear it'll all make sense. Please, Memphy? What can happen? There's three gods on this island!"

"Eh, okay. I guess it can't hurt to listen and if you're like, possessed, I can take it. I'm one of the best Zenaffa wielders," she said, a warning hint in her voice.

Sylphiel and Memphis followed him to the room, were teleported in and introduced to Leyunso. As well as that went; Leyunso could only say hi.

Jillas poured out his story again, Orun added in explanations where needed, and Leyunso sporadically claimed he lied.

At the end, Sylphiel broke into a relieved smile. "I'm so glad that was all false. We'll help them, right, Memphy?"

"Eeeeeh ..."

"We need to lower the fusion shield so the two Claires can become whole again and teleport gunmoll where everyone can see her," Jillas said.

"This is too much," Memphis said. "The whole thing a plot? Dammit, why do I even believe this? There's rugs in my breakfast, the gods are play mind games on us and what is  _her_  deal? Can't she try talking without being sarcastic?"

"Well, no. She's cursed so people can't believe her her claims. It's a long, long story. Better let gunmoll tell it."

"Hold it. What?" Memphis asked. "She can brainwash people by talking? Please tell me you're joking."

"He's joking," Leyunso said.

Memphis let go a nervous little laugh. "Gaia be praised ... I'm ... I can't even seriously consider you're joking now she said that. How ... how does this work?"

"Does it mean they won't believe she's telling the truth, or that they cannot believe anything she claims ever in any situation ever?" Sylphiel asked.

"The second one," Jillas said. "If she says it wasn't a hoax, that means they will believe it was a hoax but what kinda hoax they think it is depends on who they are. They can't ever again believe it was a hoax."

"A whole lot of them already believe it was a hoax," Memphis said. "Just that they were fooling themselves or that Xelloss always planned to defect and that kinda stuff. So, if she says, Xelloss and Filia did not perform a hoax. This hoax is not meant to plant Xelloss as a mole. That wouldn't work?"

"Nope," Jillas said. That just means they're gonna argue over what those statements did mean. Some will get it, but others are gonna think they didn't do a hoax to  _plant_  Xelloss as amole and that means they can  _never_  believe it. That's gonna be a problem once those three come back, especially if Rangort or Zelas are among those. We can't predict that. That shield needs to go down. If we can get Zelas and Luna to disagree somehow, without anyone blowing up Leyunso or locking us up first, that'll get us far."

"Or how about we just convince them to kick out the Aqualord?" Leyunso asked.

"Or that. I've got a few ideas, and you're all gonna need to help out here. Are you game?"

**· · · · · · ·**


	38. Filia's Commonsense

**· · · · · · ·**

He just _had_ to sing. Never mind the pain, the humiliation of _that_ was what she'd remember most, she was sure.

Okay, the condition of her body was building up to be worse right now. A flock of marine devils had chanced across her body and gnawed on her limbs for a bit. She couldn't get in, or there would be witnessed. The had to fight off the pledge from pulling her in and heal her as well. So she had waited until Dalphin's order of retreat whisked them away.

Once the Aqualord's pull helped her get back in right, the pain hit her full force. It wasn't the magic itself, but the things it tried to fix. There wasn't quite a hole in her body, Xelloss had projected around her, but her spine was in pieces and her skull had cracked when it had hit the water. The currents had thrown her against rocks down the way and her lungs filled with water. There was no air to replace it.

It took Ragrairyos too long to teleport her away. In between the perpetual choking and the unnatural way the pledge forced her body to heal, there wasn't much room for speculating on why.

Only when the devil energy began to it hit her the little red light was still there. The talisman? She closed her better hand around it.

A little voice thrilled in her ear, "Finally! Listen, swim in the direction of where I pull. Once we're away from these accursed waters, teleport up in the air."

Filia forced her limbs to push her up. She gasped for air when she broke the surface, but couldn't get rid of the water. It took her three tries to teleport up, where she promptly transformed into her dragon self.

Having bigger lungs, she breathed in once before coughing up. She almost pummeled back into the water, but steadied herself at the last minute.

Right, onto business.

"What just happened?" she yelled at the tiny talisman in her claws.

"You tell me, you were ghosting around. All I know is that a fusion shield is cutting right through my stretched out body, and that this began shortly after I went to put you back into your body."

"I'm not sure. Zelas's had her full out projection, I couldn't see what exactly happened between her and miss Luna. I think they talked, but that's all I know. Then miss Luna ordered your puppet and it obeyed. I don't understand. Are there two gods now?"

"The shield doesn't cut my soul in half, just my body. I'm the astral equivalent of paralyzed neck down, and I hope they're not going to play with what that shield can do."

"What do you mean, going to?"

"They haven't let up the shield around Elmegiddo."

A multitude of new concerns crashed over Filia. What did that say about Luna? Would Jillas be okay, what would he do? When would the barrier come down for the injured? Would Ragrairyos be alright? What was wrong with Zelas? She had no answers, so she only asked, "Is Xelloss alright?"

"He got in without a hitch, at least with Dalphin. Now, we need to plan. You cannot hover around in the open like this. Prepare to teleport."

**· · · · · · ·**

Xelloss was supposed to teleport to Rygoon at his first chance, where he would meet up with the now informed islanders. In their absence, they could only wait on two things : when Xelloss showed up, and when the Sailoon royals would be back in their capital. Right now, they were up and about dealing with the war. Ragrairyos couldn't see so far in this state and spent her time inside the talisman, which at least dulled the cut a little.

For Filia, the hours numbed her mind with anxiety. She went over all sorts of problems, like Xelloss being found out somehow or the barrier never opening. They would open, right? They had to communicate with the outside world, unless they went ahead with reincarnating Luke — how soon would they notice something wrong with Ragrairyos? What would they think if it? Would anyone ask Jillas?

What if Valgarv had figured out all of Xelloss's word tricks by now, and would recognize them? What if Valgarv got fed up? What if he got curious about why Xelloss could channel Shabranigdu's power? Just how much did he still retain of Volphied's knowledge? If they did subtract Val, could he stand up to Valgarv on his own?

How was she going to ever explain this to Elena and the rest of the family? They were so near, she could go to Sailoon now and explain them ... and risk herself being seen by the wrong people. Did she even want to talk?

_Val wasn't real, but we'll make him so and send him to what may well be his death._

Valgarv was simple. He was the enemy set to destroy the world, yet that simplicity felt so incomplete when he pulled out so much guilt and hatred and pity and remorse — some things she understood were well past what he deserved, but could not stop feeling regardless.

Claire had responded to Val's betrayal by deciding not to depend on individual attachment. Just like that, thrown out the potential to develop love. She had left it behind when she became part of Ragrairyos. Filia would never make such a choice, but still, she understood it now. If one had the option to never feel like this without having experienced the best of it, without it having really been part of her identity ...

Still, the idea someone could decide on what personality another had frightened her more than it appealed. Maybe Elena would get it, after a lot of explaining, but the others wouldn't. Neither Claire nor Val had loved them. Where to begin?

Jillas had written them already, but only given them an incomplete story.

There was still same paper lying around in the rooms here. She shoved an old drawing of Val under a book and focused on the latter.

Her hands still wouldn't cooperate, and she just got blotches of ink all over the paper. Again.

Another thing she would have to explain to her family; why she wouldn't be making vases again, and would need help writing the company documents. Because of Xelloss.

He'd broken just her hands. What she had gotten from him in Kataart wasn't even close to what he could do.

He'd broken her hands. He could have done something that wouldn't have left a lasting scar. To what extent was it his need to act versus a devil's sadism?

That kind of dichotomy surrounded him at every turn. She was sick with worry for his safety, but also worried about what would happen after they got Lina back. She didn't want him to die, but she didn't want him in her life either. She needed him for a plan that she hated having to do. If she could not begin to explain what he was to herself, she couldn't explain it to others.

A small sizzle, a golden glow and the sharp sense of devil presence startled Filia so hard her quill broke between her fingers.

"Oh my, I did my job a little too well, didn't I?" Xelloss said somewhere behind her.

"It's just my hands being difficult," Filia said without looking back.

It wasn't untrue, but it left out things. Her memories of him with bloodlust all around, screaming for her to flee, but she couldn't let them matter.

"Hmmhmm." He didn't believe her. "So, where is everyone?"

Ragrairyos covered that explanation in her usual dry tone, albeit a little vexed.

"Oh my, how unfortunate," he said too casually. She was tempted to ask Ragrairyos whether he really felt that way, but let it go. He'd notice.

"How are things on your end?" Filia asked.

"The demon clan believes that 'Dark Star' and Ruby Eye are gearing up to attack. The war is about delivering food to him. Personally, I believe Valgarv struggles with controlling Shabranigdu's power through the hosts. The traces of how he uses the demonsblood talisman are dim, but I know what to look for : his charade might not last long. He knows this and already talks about using his hollow to mine through the seabed, to slip _below_ the barriers.

I have not yet planted any beacons. Valgarv stays in his little throne hall most of the time, and I only have an excuse to be there when reporting. We may need to risk a wider beacon, I have a better chance if I'm not limiting the range to a few meters. Will that make it much harder to teleport him out?"

"Yes," Ragrairyos whispered in Filia's ear. "Though, we might fix that if we bring in aid."

Filia nodded, they already had plans for aid in the valley, which might extend their function. She let Ragrairyos explain that by handing the talisman to Xelloss, and expected him to summon Lina. He did exactly that.

In the physical plane nothing happened clearly, but astrally the talisman became in sharper definition than even Xelloss on the top layer. The red of the talisman turned multiple shades at the same time, passing through black, blue and finally white. The entire astral plane shifted along with it, almost felt like one was pulled through soft walls.

When Lina appeared this time, she wore pajamas and had a toothbrush sticking out of her mouth.

"What is it _now_? ... Filia, why are you soaked in demon magic? Why are we in a tree?"

"That's a long story," Xelloss and Filia said at the same time.

A few minutes later, Lina had a though explanation on why they thought Val could be subtracted, plus a very basic outline of the plan that carefully omitted both the embarrassing and the bloody parts. Filia quietly thanked the Aqualord for her tact.

Not that the tact made it any better received by Lina.

"Why the everloving chaos would you take such a risk? Are you two completely _out of your mind_?!"

"Hmm, now you mention it, I actually have been. I wonder whether that affects my judgment," Xelloss said thoughtfully, and he might just mean it.

"Well, miss Lina, if you happen to have a better way to bring you back, I'd love to hear it," Filia said, crossing her arms. After all this trouble, being chewed out was a little much.

"Ugh, I don't have one yet. Look, you know my life motto is that you have to give your all, or you give up preemptively—"

"I thought it was _give me food_ ," Xelloss said.

"Hey, I'm a sorcerer, I need to eat. Anyway, I still stick to that, but I'm not a teenager anymore. Not giving up doesn't mean throwing yourself head first into battle without assessing all your options, or your limits. You're making a hell of a lotta gambles here and you already have a chink in the cable after stage one."

"Chinks in cables?" Xelloss asked.

Lina ignored that and asked, "How along before they're going to be suspicious of you?"

"I'm fine for a while, I'm sure. See, Valgarv cannot ask me how I feel or think about miss Filia. Dark Star is supposed to be interested in Filia exclusively due to her being a channel of Siephied, and he's previously left me alone with her to flee miss Leyunso. I already have Deep Sea Dalphin convinced I only played along with my liege to make my escape easier, if Valgarv starts questioning my motives now, he'll cast doubt on himself. He needs the cooperation of the retainers just to get his food. He won't want to make them suspicious of him."

"What about asking you whether you want to destroy the world?"

"I have my word tricks, they work fine so far."

"Does he actually believe you crossed over, or is he onto you?"

"I don't really know."

Lina pinched the bridge of her nose. "Way too much variables here, but it looks like going ahead with your plan is the best way to go. I _can_ repeat what I did with Claire, but only if there's a real personality to work with. Granny, you're sure it's there?"

"Without doubt," Ragrairyos said. "I know what I'm looking for. It's not alive on its own, but can function fully on a body. That's why _he worked so well_."

"Right. So our one immediate problem is that you don't have all of your body. They need to open Elmegiddo's barrier some time to let the others in, right? Get a peg on when that happens. A good peg. The last thing we need is you two going onto a bad teleport zone with two prickly gods just to find no entrance. Hmmm, say, Granny, what are the odds of you flying over there and writing something in the sky?"

"In this shape? None. Even with more power, it'll just look like a trap, assuming anyone sees at all."

"Any odds Leyunso can get something done?"

"Yes, but unfortunately, your sister is immune and Zelas avoided her before. If she tried, I'm sure your sister and Zelas would agree on killing or sealing her."

Lina had nary a response to that.

"Your sister and Zelas are getting along right now. Doesn't that worry you a little?" Filia asked.

"My sister is a devil herself, she'll be fine," Lina sneered. "Never mind her. Go find Amelia and Zel, we'll talk once we have more people to plan with and I had breakfast."

She vanished in a puff of golden smoke.

**· · · · · · ·**

Ragrairyos needed a bit to scry for Amelia and her company, who periodically went under fusion shields. She eventually nailed the location by asking a few nature spirits.

Sailoon and Zephyria had fortified their borders to Kalmart, which had been overrun. Rather than full out offense on the two white magic countries, the devil armies tried to get through Kalmart into Lartigue, and thereby encircle Dils.

Teleporting this distance without any godly energy to replenish her took a huge chunk out of Filia's reserves, but Sailoon was the most likely to have an update on what went down in Elmegiddo.

A massive fusion shield covered an encampment low to the ground. Now, of course they could make a scene, but if any devil scouts were nearby that could collapse their whole plan. So, Xelloss summoned Lina again through the talisman, and asked her ghostly self to walk through the shield.

That worked, but the further Lina went from the talisman, the thinner her presence became.

Filia and Xelloss waited behind their own fusion shield. She quietly speculated on whether it was worth the risk to tamper with the camp's barrier, rather than sit in the same cramped space with Xelloss.

Lina returned soon. "I can't outright project over there, but I did get Amelia to sense me. Get closer to the edge."

Filia had the less conspicuous astral body, so she slipped out of their barrier and teleported to the very edge of the camp.

Sure enough, Amelia and Zelgadis wandered through the tents.

"It went here, I'm sure!"

"I'm not questioning your priestess powers, but for all we know—"

"For all we know there's some poor spirit in need of our help."

"They could have alerted any soldier, really."

Filia tossed the hell gem. The barrier wasn't calculated to keep this type of magic out, it went right through.

It hit Zelgadis right in the head and dropped off, but Amelia caught it.

"Hey, isn't this that ..." Amelia and Zelgadis turned as one to where it had come from.

Filia peeked out of the bushes. "Over here!" she said as loud as she dared.

"Miss Filia?! You're not dead!" Amelia said, eyes widening as she skipped over to the edge. "I knew it! It made no sense for mister Xelloss to kill you!"

"Not currently, no, but I will be if you keep shouting. Could you lower the barrier? It's all part of a plan, Xelloss is waiting out there, he shouldn't be seen by the enemy."

"This could be a trap, Amelia," Zelgadis said, following at a steadier pace. "We have no guarantee that really is Filia."

"Kill any beastmen with the Sword of Emo lately?" Filia asked, nodding at his weapon.

"Dammit, how often do I have to explain that Gravos misheard? That—Wait, Amelia!"

The princess had already stepped out of the barrier and into the bushes with Filia, ready for sneakiness mode. Filia led her to Xelloss, Zelgadis grumbling on their trail.

So maybe they were being a little overly cautious, but it didn't harm to be. After a minute of tangling through the shrubs, they found Xelloss, got him to transform into a cone to verify himself, and that was enough for Amelia to invite them in.

Filia was unfamiliar with the terrain so they landed between tents, but quickly slipped inside an empty one. There, Zelgadis crossed his arm and got a stern look, the investigator variation of his usual brooding.

"Right, you're alive and yourselves. That doesn't mean this is in order. The last time we saw you, you were terrified of him and he's broken your hands beyond repair. Next news we get, you're dating. You deciding to stick with them after all the shit they put you through? I know all about how that works," Zelgadis said to Filia. "And now you're here, alive and with him, hiding."

"Well, our little run in in Kataart is why we played up miss Filia's part as a Storkhelm Syndrome," Xelloss said cheerfully. "Don't worry, it's all part of our genius plan to fool Valgarv by fooling Dalphin by fooling my liege the Beast Monarch by fooling the dragons, so that we can kidnap Valgarv. Once we have him, we're going to rewrite his mind so he returns miss Lina and stops trying to end the world."

"What?" Clearly this needed a better explanation. Filia explained their logic, rushed through the embarrassing parts and well, ended up with almost the same closing line as Xelloss.

"How _did_ you ever agree to this, Filia?" Zel asked.

"Valgarv broke her," Xelloss said, still with inappropriate cheer. "I assume that includes her ethics because _she_ suggested this plan _to me_."

"I _prefer_ to see it as being reasonable in this absurd war," Filia said. "And I _know_ it's not your business to comment on."

"Yep, that's them," Amelia said. "You know what this means? We're going to win this war much sooner! I'm sure mister Xelloss can get all sorts of inside information!"

"Eh? I didn't—"Come here for that, Filia could imagine him saying, but she didn't let him.

"That's a great idea. Why don't we gather other leaders and see what we can do? Oh, and I have the talisman here, so both miss Ragrairyos and miss Lina can pitch in!"

After getting familiar with the flow and having Zel roughly point her in the direction, Filia teleported into the conference area central to the camp.

It was small castle crafted from the earth itself with golems and layers of protective holy magic shrouded it. Maps lay all over the place, and in the middle was a tired king and a small green plushie. Philionel still had his aura of justice, but was somehow worn down, more tired. Pokota had some scorch marks, but seemed fine. With him that didn't mean anything.

They startled when the group just appeared, but only Pokota spoke. "Huh? What's going on?"

"We're about to find out," Zelgadis said.

"This is the whole group?" Claire asked from within the talisman. "Liliane was supposed to send at least a councilor."

"It doesn't matter. The least people in on it, the less likely someone's going to be caught and tortured into leaking sensitive information," Xelloss said. "Which may in other ways too, if I end up sharing anything none of you are supposed to know."

"We'll cross that bridge later," Zelgadis said. "Get Lina in here."

Summoning her did a small wonder for the mood, even if Lina went on at length about how nuts this plan was. She got a more elaborate version of the story, her response started with the class what and ended with a thorough " _What the everliving hell_?"

"Well, it worked," Xelloss said, a little offended. "We just didn't expect my liege to suddenly get along with miss Luna and lock us out."

"Fine. Here we are," Lina said. So far, she hadn't said a word about whether she could actually do what they expected her to do, so nobody asked. It'd just offend Lina's self confidence, not unjustified.

"Here we are indeed," Ragrairyos said, sound far less confident and more torn down. Most people in the room didn't look too bright, and Philionel hadn't said a word all along.

"So how did you fake _it_ anyway, Filia?" Pokota asked, perhaps in a bad effort to lighten the mood. "Obsessively calculating Pythagorean Theorems or Herons Formulas?"

"We should have thought of that angle," Xelloss said.

"We had a word trick, okay. Smoke and mirrors," she said stiffly.

"Was that bloody, convincing death we heard about smoke as well?" Zelgadis asked. That got Filia a sharp look from Lina; she could hear the chastisement already. Don't be a martyr.

"We fused magic, off course," Xelloss said. "As for the precise details ..."

He waited a moment, and Filia decided with a small nod. From behind, he stuck his arm through her stomach. This time she felt nothing, ... except irritation, because there was a projected fake heart complete with blood in his hand.

"Xelloss! You were complaining about tacky lines and then you do this? Can you possibly be more tacky than ripping my heart out?"

He pulled his arm back with a puff of smoke. "Words don't bleed, miss Filia. Organs do."

He thumbed at the audience : full of horrified faces. So much for lightening the mood; everyone here just came from a warzone. _Note to self, Xelloss is always bad for sensitive situations. Shame on you for forgetting._

At least Lina didn't look like she was going to make a case about martyrs. Filia wasn't sure she could deny it.

"Enough of this," Zelgadis said. "We have a to figure out how to get that barrier down."

"If this has Xelloss written all over it, maybe Zelas will figure it out on her own," Pokota said.

Lina shook her head. "Xelloss's method is being upfront with incomplete information and steering people into pre-existing trouble zones. This is not his style, it's _Filia's_ style : let everyone know _something_ is coming and roleplay to make people assume what she needs."

"Oh come now. It's not a style, that would imply I do it regularly," Filia huffed. "I don't at all."

"Unfortunately," Xelloss said.

"Odds that Luna and Zelas are going to disagree soon? What I heard about them isn't pretty," Pokota said.

Filia clenched her teeth together and said, "I kind of, ehm, implied that it's okay to have a Storkhelm Syndrome. She ran with her own."

Lina got a most wicked grin. "Luna did? How would that even work?"

"She will not stop calling my liege Poodlywoo," Xelloss said with a sudden case of seriousness.

"I hope Zelas fixes that."

The callousness with which Lina said so bothered Filia, but at the same time she knew where it came from. Luna being coerced into the plot was vile, but so was everything she'd done to Lina. She forgave Lina, but maybe not for the right reasons. She's also forgiven Valgarv for the wrong reasons, and see how useless that had been.

It struck Filia that the three people most involved in her life all had trails of victims. She could have done something about most of that.

Zelgadis leaned to Filia and whispered, "Are you sure _you're_ not having some sort of Storkhelm Syndrome?"

"She does, though not towards me," Xelloss said. "It was actually quite useful for our scheme. We need bait somewhere down the line."

Bait for _him,_ said like they were going fishing and it was no big deal. That was the second time Xelloss did this in short order, and it didn't help keep her mind off of the worst yet to come.

"That was not for you to answer. Stick to strategy," Filia said through gritted teeth, standing up. "Please excuse me."

She walked out of the room, finding it too suffocating. Covering her face with a cloth in case anyone saw her, she sat in the corner of the front hall and listened.

Behind her, Xelloss cheerfully announced he could impart information on the enemy, but only insofar it wouldn't render him suspicious; ideas for traps that would be sprung later and plans that would pay off after he was safe. No amount of begging would get him to budge.

He sounded so damn bright, a sharp contrast to the urgent and sometimes explosive voices of the Sailoon royals, Phil less so than Amelia. Lina interspersed a few pessimistic comments on the likelihood of getting him to take risks. Zel's dried out frustration and occasional spitting at Xelloss spiced it at times. Pokota found himself as the odd middle man of all that, while also trying to convince people they needed to inform more royalty.

Everything in her life had become profane, down to herself.

When the meeting died down, Filia considered getting back in to have a word with Lina, but decided against it. The kind of conversation she wanted to have wouldn't do in front of everyone, or even with Xelloss there to keep the link going.

The remainder still debated on strategy, but Xelloss left pretty soon. Rather than phase away, he stepped out and closed the door behind him.

"What went wrong there?" he asked.

"Nothing. I don't know anything about warfare so why shouldn't I take a break?"

He sat down next to her, crosslegged. "Really?"

Of course not.

She didn't really want to talk to Xelloss about this, he'd probably say the wrong thing again. He wasn't supposed to even see it when she faltered

"You don't get to talk about my role for me. I'm trying ... just try to get it, I have to face him again and cut into his soul and ... do you have to talk about it like it's a joke? I can hardly keep myself together and you're bring it up like it's the best thing ever." She tried sounding angry, but was running low on that emotion. It just came out tired.

"Sorry, I slipped up a little," he said, doing that thing where he scratched the back of his head, and she could not tell how sincere he was.

"Shouldn't you get back to the demon clan? They'll be suspicious if you're gone for too long."

"True. I still have to get myself an excuse," he said, but didn't stand up yet. He just got a weird little smile. "But before I go, there's one more thing."

"What?" she snapped.

"Quack."

This time, there was no social situation to regard. Filia laughed despite everything and hated herself for it.

What else was there to do but laugh at everything, when she couldn't afford to cry? Silly devils in closets and chocolate ice cream, all part of the same world where children were adults and personalities were choices.

When the last chuckle died down, there were tears on her face anyway. That shouldn't be happening, she'd worked so hard not to cry.

Xelloss had a puzzled look on his face. "Not quite what I hoped to get as a response."

"Well, too bad. I have an appointment with hell now, so go find your entertainment elsewhere."

**· · · · · · ·**

With the talisman and its god inside, Filia teleported to the valley of the ancients.

Here it had been that Filia conceived her plan. The first thoughts had played out when Luna spoke to her about Val being a lie. Fragments of understanding soul gates coming together with knowing how Luna's split consciousness worked. The pieces fell together when she investigated how the hell trees Lina had grown here truly worked, and then Xelloss came forth and proved cooperative enough ... she had the means and the method. Valgarv would die where it would suit the world best.

They would bind Valgarv and his pieces of Shabranigdu in place long enough for them to get surgical on his soul. That was where the hell trees came in.

The trees had been grown by Lina under the instructions of the Knight of Shabranigdu, Laust and his eons of experience with the world. The trees channeled energy of Megiddo itself in such a manner that it could polarize a soul. Dead and broken souls had a hard time moving away from it. Best yet, souls from hell could easily pass to this place.

Limbo didn't exist, she had learned since her days as ignorant priestess, but this place deserved the name. The Ancients already had come to this place before Lina transformed it, their most sacred ground. Be it in death or life.

At the shore, she laid the angelsblood talisman in the water. With a sigh of relief, Ragrairyos drifted into the depths. A mirage of her true form reflected in the sky like aurora, settling into a circle over the valley. Her wings tucked close, she twisted and spiraled like a serpent and sang with the voice of whales — for gods, motion was prayer to nature.

Filia took out the hell gem and knelt down in her own way of prayer.

Humbly she bid a path through Megiddo, the first to answer were the three elders she had seen once before.

"She who bears the blood of the golden dragons, why have you called us here?"

Filia looked up, but kept her pose. "I call you for the fate of the world. Let me answer the question you once asked me with no. We cannot achieve peace simply by nonviolence. There is no ambiguity about our war, for the devils we fight are an absolute force of destruction that craves pain to pave its path. One of your own children would not stand down and now he seeks to remake the world in his image, using that same path.

So I have come to ask you, will you stand by idly _again_?"

"We have not been idle in guarding hell's pieces of Shabranigdu, but we may presume you mean something more active."

"I do."

"What would the bygone like us even able to do? And for what purpose?" asked the female elder. "Let us hear that before we say anything."

"I and a few of my allies have a plan to capture Valgarv and reprogram his intentions, so he will hurl himself into Elmegiddo. We will have him summon the Apostle of Chaos for us, or failing that, we will seal Shabranigdu's power, claim the talisman and try on our own."

"By what means?"

They stayed silent after she told them, long enough for her to become anxious. "Listen, before miss Lina, I never did anything truly useful, and she urged me to take action. My lack of resolve, my crippling guilt could have damned the world. I have to stand, and so do you. I know spirits can still hold power. Phibrizo gave the dead bodies, Ragraire can do the same for you. _Do something for the world_. You absolute pacifism only ever got yourself killed faster, you extended no one's life, alleviated no misery."

"What would you have us do?"

"If we want to reprogram Valgarv, we need him to stay in one place for us to work on. With your help, we can hold him, but you would have another purpose : to lure him here. Valgarv is a narcissist, a kind of person who craves recognition. It is as air to him, and so he will respond to an audience. I've seen him do it myself many times, his greatest mistakes stem from it. The one who helped him trick us for seven years is dead now. We can play him the way he played us."

"Will you tell us more? It seems a lot has happened to our last child that we do not know of."

Filia told them, but more often than not, Ragrairyos filled in when her voice wavered. The Ancients listened in silence, their questions scarce.

At the end of it, the leader faced Filia in particular.

"What are your motivations in this? We agree that our child must be stopped, but understand, you are a golden dragon seeking to reverse what once was your way to atone. Are you certain there is no other way?"

It wasn't really about the logic, Filia realized. It was the symbol of Val's rebirth they would lay to the grave.

"I must ... I _want_ to atone for what my people did to you. But I can't do it, because the reasons I want to atone are a lie. I learned to believe in a great moral force in this world, where responsibility and duty is a natural fact. The Lord of Nightmares doesn't care, nor do the gods. By what standards would I atone? Who would tell me when it would be enough?"

She had rehearsed the words, even if she hated believing them.

"We might tell you, I suppose, but we are all individuals. We would not agree in perfection," the elder said. "It is of no consequence. We do not ask that you pay, for it does none any good. Let us consider your efforts for the child a sign of your good will."

Somewhere under the weight of her heart, she felt relief for those words, but it meant so little. Murderer of her own child. Innocent sinner.

"If that can be the last word on this, I'd like to never speak again of Valgarv as a child, be it yours or mine. He is the world's enemy," she said.

"Well then. We will aid you as dragons united under a god," he said to her, before turning to the god in question. "Aqualord Ragrairyos, you have our service."

**· · · · · · ·**

Under their song, the trees of Megiddo were kindled again. Filia aided by casting her magic on the nearest trees, one by one. She took its fire and lit candles for little baskets on the water, spreading their magic for the Aqualord's flow resonance.

Sleep tugged at her body, but she pushed it away. Ragrairyos expanded what little power she had, coaxing elemental spirits to aid in the construction of the region.

Soon, a low mist rolled over the grass and water, accompanying the ghosts as they wandered and chanted softly. Those ghosts in human form sang with alphabetical words, those in dragon form with the wails and humming of their kind. The hymn was in a language Filia did not recognize, but the tone carried sorrow and serenity. Soon, they synchronizes with Ragrairyos.

Next on her task list was refining the chains she had taken from Luna. They replaced their original plan for a seal, but had yet to be refined. Through the pledge, Filia could exert fusion magic, but only within specifics she had told Xelloss about beforehand.

Keeping fusion magic going wasn't easy. In the heat of a moment their goals might coincide, but sitting still with nothing to keep her single minded only steered her thoughts to how he was.

Right now, Xelloss was expected to assist in the war. He would be killing people, and it wasn't enough to tell herself that if he didn't, someone else would. She couldn't even begin to measure where he might be going too far. To what extent what she responsible for everyone who died? Could she do something to make it less? Should she? Why did she want to?

She spoke with the ghosts of the ancient dragons in the hopes of defining that line, at least, even if she couldn't change that right now countless were dying. Their ideas on Xelloss were at best ambivalent.

The more she spoke with them, the more she felt like an outsider. They told of virtue and lost wisdom, their elders most solemn and those who had died young only a little more lively. If there were any who had died before the genocide, she didn't meet them.

They wanted to know about Val and Valgarv, worried for her allegiance with the devil wolf pack and gave quiet but ultimately ignorant advice. It was impossible to be near them, and not have Val and Valgarv come to the front of her mind.

Ragrairyos, probably out of some detached realization this wasn't helping Filia, took to talking in her stead. Somehow this dissolved into a theological debate. She was not satisfied with their current concession to help out and wanted more. It surprised Filia a little, that she now had an interest in gaining followers, but she didn't know what to think of it.

Ranting at Luna about something trivial like merchants delivering the wrong clay would've been nice now ... and a rather weird thing to wish for. Luna who was always calm by the time she'd sat down for long distance communication and would indulge in fantasies on how to one-up whomever she complained about. But Luna was just another shattered idol.

Filia had about two days to tightly wrap herself into a blanket of solemn tragedy before Xelloss appeared.

She'd taken a spot on the edge of an artificial hamlet, once used for sacred rituals by the ruined temple. In the thick of holy magic and Megiddo's flow, she didn't notice him until somewhere far off, she heard, "How very dreary."

Relief that he was alright clashed with sheer irritation — leave it to Xelloss to disrespect the mood.

"Then go elsewhere. You don't need to be here," Filia said, a little louder than needed. She didn't mean it.

Xelloss projected at her side, hunched down. "I just got here and you're sending me away again? How rude. And I just got you this excellent crystal ball," he said with a fake pout. From his satchel, he pulled ... well, that was indeed some state of the art. "I guess I'll just take it along again."

Filia snatched it before he could put it away again. Carefully turning it over in her hands, she concluded it had to be dragon craft. That earned him a suspecting look.

"I just looted it from Kataart," he said. "They had me run through to mountains to find enemy hide outs and I picked up a few things."

He might have also taken lives, she couldn't help but remember.

The crystal resonated with the water; likely created to compliment the Aqualord's power and the sacred waters. Filia sat down at the water's edge where the roots of the trees allowed. She took her shoes off and let the magic connect in the most simple way — contrary to all the formality she'd been taught about elemental alliance magic. No circles and spells and ritual.

First she checked on Elena and the rest of her family; just a cursory glance through the window of their shelter. They were well, though worried sick. Elena had started an aid group for beastfolk and Palu helped out with the forging of armors. She didn't see Gravos at first, but soon found him outside gathering wood.

Amelia and the other leaders didn't advance in the war; they didn't want the enemy to know their supply of holy magic was cut off and so they feigned a focus on rescue missions and fortification. How long would that last was up in the air. The devil armies tried to pierce south every day. The Eternal Queen had the reserve not to move too soon, but Sailoon might not.

Zelgadis had gotten a dragon to teleport him to the eastern station, where he planned to leave a message for next time anyone from Elmegiddo checked. The crew had told him someone had already been by to inform them of the situation : the shield would stay up until they had completed a new talisman, had summoned Lina and incarnated Luke somehow. When asked about support for the war, they were told that they would devise a way to let holy magic pass out of the shield. Eventually. Zelgadis didn't end up telling them the scheme, after probing waters and getting weariness and suspicion.

"Tea?" Xelloss shoved a saucer with a cop before her nose.

She wanted to keep watching, but that tea smelled terribly good. She set the ball aside and accepted, not worrying there was a catch.

Mere months ago, she would have deemed Xelloss's silence to be blissful, and suspicious he was up to something. Now it reminded her something was very off, and that she didn't know what to do with him. He'd gotten more careful to the point where if she wanted to argue, she had to start it. Her anxiety about him was useless right now, but she didn't want to temper it. Once this was all over, he'd stop being congenial.

The leech shone through even now. He'd started kicking one of the little candle floats she'd so painstakingly put together. It wasn't an act to make himself seem less dangerous, he really was this petty.

He was also the reason putting those floats together had been painstaking, what with lacking a usable thumb on one of her hands. Did he simply act on a whim, or had he just figured out a way to vex her that she hadn't covered in the list? A whole new kind of paranoia, she now questioned every little thing.

Inevitably, this shot her thoughts back to Val. She should have been far, far more paranoid about _his_ little quirks and — _no don't think about Val._

The candle float toppled over and Filia elbowed Xelloss in the arm. "Quit that. And you know, you don't need to sit _this_ close."

"But there's not much room here."

Filia waved around at the air. "Really? So I'm imagining all this empty space here?"

"It's air full of dull ghosts. You're the only tolerable thing in this valley."

She stuck out her tongue and shoved a little harder. Act as usual.

"I take this means you're alright with touch if you start it? Well then ..."

Xelloss shoved her into the water.

Sputtering, Filia burst from the surface with drooping mud in her hands, which she almost hurled at Xelloss. He dodged, but when she didn't throw he looked disappointed.

A clutter of ghosts had stopped a little beyond him, watching quietly and distraught. Guilt bubbled up and she let her hands drop.

"Really, that's all?" Xelloss asked.

"I shouldn't have done this, this is the wrong place," she said. "It's already bad enough to I brought someone here like you, what with your history."

"Hmm _hmm_."

"Don't you hmmhmm me, Xelloss. Everyone of their clan can never reincarnate or rebuild the nation. This is a solemn place."

"I'm well aware," he said dryly.

"Oh, for—do you have to be so insensitive?"

"That's because I just am not sensitive to this matter," he said, prickly now. Probably irritated he didn't get to play. This was the point where she should really just drop it, but he vexed her and he did so at the worst time.

"Can you at least _try_ to understand why it's so awful if you kill people, either directly or by proxy?" The question was out before she'd thought about.

"And why are you bringing this up, now?"

_Don't think about Val. Anything but Val. You have to condemn your son. He won't even become a ghost, like them. And this monster here, would laugh at the end. He's already laughing whenever he kills._

It didn't even feel like her own thoughts, came in the voices of old mentors and ill remembered preaches.

The Ancient ghosts had moved on, but Filia still stood in the water, staring back at one open eye of Xelloss. He was genuinely curious, for once, but she didn't have a good explanation.

"Just answer!"

"I can try, if _you_ try to understand it doesn't hold weight to us. When I kill someone they do not end, they will still exist as ghosts. Depending on their mental strength, they can last forever. When we astral beings are destroyed, there is either nothing left or some remnant that becomes its own person. My killing of others only means they lose their physical form, which we go without most of the time anyway."

"You still take from them everything that defined them so far, their world, their friends and family still here, and stick them in a form they weren't even aware of before. And if they die before resolving their problems, they'll be stuck in a self induced hell on earth."

"Alternatively, I killed them before they have a chance to meet that hell on earth. Now, are you going to stay in the water out of protest, or ..."

She climbed out, on the opposite side of the hamlet. That left her work on the wrong side, but that was less important than making a point on ... well, it should be that Xelloss was being a pain, but it wasn't so bad this time. It was just everything else about him, in this situation, in light of what they had to do and then some.

He gave her a long, strange look, eyes a little narrowed. In rare moments like this, she wanted to know what he thought.

After a moment's pause, almost like he gave in, he continued, "It's not like it bothers me to kill, but I'm not an advocate for senseless mass slaughter. There's no sense to either the specific orders nor the grand war and I'm growing bored with herding prey. However, there is no way to do this without getting dirty, miss Filia. You know that."

She did know that, and that was the worst of it : she'd caused this.

**· · · · · · ·**

Xelloss didn't come by every day. When he did, it was only for a short window, just enough to adjust things on the chainwork or get familiar with the growing magic of the area.

The entire time, Filia resisted the urge to use the crystal ball to look at what he did. She used it to keep an eye on those she knew, just brief flashes to confirm they were alright. That included the survivors of her dragon family. A few members in the second order, and eventually she built up the courage to look for her mother in the deep south. That life seemed so distant and irrelevant now, and she found it hard to reconnect. Her own mother would be appalled at what Filia had become, she knew that much — and Filia shared the sentiment. With all likelihood, her mother had known of the genocide. She didn't have the courage to ask the ghosts whether they recognized her, nor to go south and ask her mother. Imagining her mother had left because she disagreed didn't work, she'd been too enthusiastic about Filia becoming a priestess in her father's footsteps.

_Hello, mother. This war we're having? My son caused it, and you're probably losing new family to Xelloss, whom I put in the enemy's hands for use._

On the fourth day, the crystal ball glowed on its own; most likely one of the Sailoon faction. Filia jumped to take the call, hoping for good news and fearing worse.

Zelgadis's face appeared within the crystal, looking solemn.

"Mister Zelgadis? How are you doing?" she asked, worried already.

"I've been to the island."

Given his tense expression, she didn't expect good news. "You ... didn't tell them?"

"I tried, but we have a big problem."

Zel's gut instinct to not tell the station attendants had been right for two reasons; first in that Valgaav had sent devils to the station to take it over and the original attendants were abducted or dead. Second, the island was a big bundle of paranoia.

Zelas and Rangort had concluded that Xelloss, perhaps with Filia's help, had corrupted the Aqualord, and right now they were getting suspicious of Valwin and Orun. Rangort refused to talk to any mortal who knew magic, ergo could cast life law circles. Zelas did not project and had Luna at her side at all times. They were unreachable. He hadn't gotten a hold of Jillas, nor Leyunso.

"Why didn't you try to tell anyone else?"

"I met Milgazia, but when I told him you were alive he got suspicious at once. He started suggesting I've been fooled with a clone and wouldn't hear me out, and when I pressed on he got suspicious. I got out of there."

Filia cut off the vehement objections boiling in her throat — Zelgadis had a nasty history with being distrusted for the surface, so she asked instead, "How did you get in?"

"They didn't lower the barrier, they just let me through by teleporting me to the edge. I've the vessels refilled and a schedule for when we can visit them next."

"When is that?"

"They won't tell us because they want to be unpredictable. They expect Xelloss to use teleportation to bring the enemy close to the island and count on Valgaav still having access to that hollow that Val used to have. Top that with all gods being a mess right now, and I see why they're afraid. If Xelloss really were on their side and could get access to holy magic, even if they had to make short jumps in the unstable zone, they could pretty much walk in. An absolute barrier is the only safe way."

"Their motto might as well be, distrust everyone."

"You could wait till they finish a talisman and contact Lina, who will set them straight," Zelgadis said. It didn't sound very convinced, nor did it need to be said that the longer they waited, the more could go wrong. The more people died, the more time Valgaav had to either succumb to Shabranigdu or devise a way to control him.

"Maybe we can get a message to miss Luna. If I could get into her dreams, I could clear it up, but she needs to invite me."

"I don't know whether anyone can get near enough Luna, Zelas regularly destroys things."

Filia's heart sank.

She tried to wring every detail she could from Zelgadis, but he had little else of use to report. Yet somehow, he was disinclined to disconnect, so she asked, "Is there something else you want to talk about?"

He waited so long with replying, Filia grew impatient.

"They started sending him to Sailoon," he said at last.

It _shouldn't_ be a shock that Xelloss would kill people in Sailoon when she knew what he did elsewhere, yet it still felt like another violation. So many died just to prop up an undercover mission to plan a few rocks in a room. Sailoon was just a little closer than others, it shouldn't feel more important, worse, ... yet it did, because of it rang closer. How weak.

"When Xelloss ... " Zelgadis's voice trembled, either out of uncertainty or rage. "Is he always like that, or just putting up a show?"

She didn't need to ask what he meant. "He usually kills quickly, but when he gets caught up, yes, he is always like that."

"He never let us see," Zelgadis said, more as confirmation than revelation; he'd been there when she'd spoken to Lina about what Xelloss was like. "Amelia's not talking about justice anymore. He spares us, if we happen to be on the battlefield. He goes out of his way to avoid us being captured by the enemy ... and then he'll turn around and murder our friends for show."

He didn't say it out loud, but Filia saw it in his eyes. Zelgadis had a far greater capacity for grudges than the rest of Lina's core friends, now kindled to her. She'd put Xelloss in this position, right?

"Filia, you've already seen his real self, haven't you?"

The weight behind that question didn't escape her either; Lezo's real self had not been what Zelgadis expected. She knew in this moment that Zelgadis would never forgive Xelloss and for now.

"So did you, just not all of it. _Everything_ is his real self, even if he doesn't make sense to us. He's a godawful actor, really. That's why we have this ruse."

Zelgadis clenched his jaws, and Filia's throat tightened. There really was no excuse, nothing she could say to make it okay.

"It's alright, you have every right to hate me," she said before severing the connection.

She still heard the start of a sentence, "Wait, F—" but it wasn't worth hearing. Zelgadis had taken a cue from his more upbeat friends in the later years, might even say it wasn't her fault, that he understood. She couldn't hear such things now.

**· · · · · · ·**

Filia slept in a hole below a pillar she had shoved over, covered with blankets she had taken along in her pocket space. The past nights had been a chore, as she tried to perfect her astral projection without the power of Valwin or Ragrairyos. In the original plan, her ghost would have Ragrairyos's power to pass the distance, for when she would be bait. Now, nothing, and she couldn't go very far. Her awareness of the astral plane didn't diminish, but that was the most she could do now. She missed it a little.

The ghosts never stopped chanting. The noise did not bother her, it was rather peaceful and serene, but sometimes they struck a line about repentance. Tonight, every word built up in her mind. She could sleep.

Some infernal part of her mind, the one that managed memory, kept forcing her focus back to realizing she had sicced Xelloss on ... well, acquaintances. She wasn't sure she could even call the Sailoon family friends. It felt worse that Xelloss targeted them, and at the same time like it shouldn't matter so much. All loss of life was dreadful, equally, regardless ... but strangers didn't look at her like they knew. By all means, she should be feeling worse about everything Valgarv did because she hadn't seen through Val.

It tempted her to cast Holy Rezast and let all of it wash away for a while, but she had to get used to feeling this way and still functioning. She couldn't afford to shut down at the worst time again. This time there was no Inverse sister to help her through. That, and it didn't feel like she deserved it.

By morning, it began to drizzle. She gave up on sleeping and tried atuning herself better to the flow of the world. It was easier here, on these holy grounds, she imagined she could lose herself in its peace if only her mind wasn't drawn elsewhere. People who died because of her, who died because she hadn't seen through Val.

Just on the edge of her senses was the prickle of a demon and a brush of holiness. Xelloss appeared a moment later, almost going through his knees. A pang of worry shot through Filia, she almost got up, but then he righted himself. It had just been the usual discomfort of teleportation.

Ragrairyos projected out of the talisman, which lay cradled in the water. The form she took was her eldest humanoid, and with it came the relaxed expression and tone. They talked for a while. Filia couldn't see Xelloss's face, only the vaguely smiling one of Ragrairyos. If anything urgent went on, she couldn't tell. She considered getting up, but didn't feel like going into the damp cold.

When Ragrairyos vanished, he shifted to the entrance of her little cave, squatted before the entrance. "Are you asleep, miss Filia?"

"Well, I was until you got here."

He didn't get huffy, just gave her a long look before he said, "Where did you get that extra serving of guilt?"

"There's no point talking about this," she snapped. "I'm fine, I can handle it."

He wouldn't be Xelloss if he didn't take that as a challenge and she wished she'd kept her tongue.

"No, I think you're just pretending to be fine. You should be mourning, but it feels like you are flagellating yourself even more than usual."

Enough. She teleported out of her shelter, to the talisman. "Miss Ragrairyos, you can help Xelloss teleport away now."

Xelloss was at her side instantly. "How can you let her be such a mess?"

"I'm the wrong person for her to talk with, and so are you," Ragrairyos said. "Besides, it makes her perfect as bait for Valgarv."

"He'll take the bait no matter what," Xelloss said. "And I'm not leaving."

Despite being in a tiny red rock, Ragrairyos managed to impress shrugging before drifting off.

"I can't believe this!" Filia snapped. "I'm trying really hard not to live like a clutter of misery and neither of you are making it easier."

"I'm not arguing you shouldn't feel miserable, I'm arguing you have no business feeling this guilty. Haven't you been over this already with miss Luna and Valgarv, back in the north? It's not your sins," Xelloss said.

"That was different! Before you rejoined them, they didn't have any spare devils of your caliber. Look, how I feel won't matter, I _won't_ back down." She forced the words out through a thickening throat. "If you despise it so much because I can't remake myself with a life law circle, then shut up. You don't get to dictate how I feel."

"Who is dictating your remorse? Are you going to take a trip to hell soon, do a body count? Will it be okay if it turns out less died than otherwise in this time frame? I suppose you're calling yourself all sorts of things in the meantime. Just sinner, or monster too? Devil alike, perhaps? Why do you need to be convinced not to destroy yourself?"

Xelloss didn't rant just like that, usually. Almost like she offended him somehow. The nerve of him. She considered telling him that right now, peace did mean that he left her alone, but she wasn't sure he wouldn't go kill people once he returned. Just kill them, not destroy them.

She turned around and walked back to her shelter. "I am going to sleep. Unless you have something important to tell me about beacons, don't bother me."

He was right behind her. "You know, I too should have noticed that something wasn't right about Val. Why don't you hate me for that? I'm an emotion eater, I could have paid more attention."

He really wasn't going to drop this, and Filia wasn't sure ... of what? That she wanted him to?

"Why are you angry with me over this?"

"You're playing into his hand by not healing, you're not — You can't let him be right. Valgarv is still tearing into you, let him go on for too young and the scars will last."

She turned back, just halfway. "And I do that by mourning, you say? How would you know I don't do that when you're gone? Maybe I only feel so guilty when you're around to remind me."

"Aqualord, is that true?" he asked rather loudly.

"No," Ragrairyos called back.

Filia sighed. "Fine, I'm not and I won't. If I were to mourn, I'd do it like a dragon. We sing songs, we remember and praise our lost ones and we learn from their wisdom and mistakes through meditation. Maybe you can mourn differently, but I don't have time for this."

He scratched the back of his head. "Now you mention it, I do recall a lot of noise after strikes during the Devil's Descent war. So that's what that was. I didn't get close enough to tell."

"I'm going back to sleep," she said, marching off.

He shifted between her and her spot, waving a finger. "You didn't really answer. You're still letting all sorta of ridiculous guilt get to you and we can't have that. Even if mourning isn't an option, there's other things you can do."

"And that would be?"

"Why don't you try to persuade me to change my tactics? You've gotten me to take risks before, do it again."

Aha, he wanted to play again. Fine. "You don't need persuasion. You already are up to something, so how about we skip this and get to it?"

"Letting her run around devils is too much of a risk," Ragrairyos said from behind them. Filia felt a prickle in the magic around them, Ragrairyos had blocked teleportive navigation.

"Then you better work very hard to spot them all, Aqualord." Xelloss held out his hand to Filia, space warping around him.

Whether he knew it or not, Xelloss dangled that precarious moral line right before her.

It didn't _feel_ right to play with lives, but that feeling was more tied to her old notions on how to be virtuous. One would be sinless, even if others died all around them, if they personally hadn't done any sin. Virtue was a state of mind, they said. Wrong, filthy, sinful if you do.

Not that Xelloss in and of himself was such a dark temptation, but in this specific context he was weight that might pull her over the edge of the bridge. She'd been the one to throw him over the edge. To what extent was she responsible for every life he took if she went along?

Xelloss must've noticed her doubt, because he said, "You are _already_ playing with lives, miss Filia."

"Not life and _death_ , save one, but ... " Not that her concerns over her own virtue mattered to the victims of this war. "Right. I'm listening."

He could rival a cat with that content smile. "Actually, it'd be better if you'd talk."

**· · · · · · ·**

The worn down shrine at the edge of Kataart started to become familiar to Filia, to her displeasure.

One of the maintainers were in the central room, polishing the stained glass. He just gave a weary sigh when Xelloss, again, appeared in the middle of their room with a blonde in tow.

"Just no throwing heavy ladies this time, okay?" one of them said.

"Don't worry about it, we won't stay long. We just need a few things from my stash and then we'll be off," Xelloss said cheerfully.

"Stash?"

"I store my things here now. It wouldn't do if I lose anything incriminating around the lords, you see."

He'd apparently hired three of the small side rooms. Filia get to see just one, but even from that it was clear : Xelloss _hoarded_. Filia had some necessities in her own pocket space, but this was absurd. Magical items and tea were logical, but he had chandeliers, costumes, handpuppets, roadside show tickets from long ago, documents on farming, beanies, a probably sentient table, twenty bags of glitter, superglue, cooking books, history books, statues with giant heads and tiny bodies, a string bracelet, and a whole lot of other nonsense.

"I like to trade," he said. "Makes it easier to claim legality when it comes to special items that I shouldn't possess."

She gave him a narrow look. "You trade in glitter and _costumes_?"

"Uhm, well, those are for special circumstances."

"I see." She made a mental note to tell Lina that Xelloss was most definitely responsible for the redressing bit in the theme park. That is, if there was time before the showndown ...

"You just strayed into pessimism again. Care to tell me about what?"

"You used to be less chatty about what emotions you could taste, why don't you go back to that?"

She couldn't place the half look she got, and so ignored it.

Xelloss unearthed a nun's costume from the pile, which wouldn't look strange when worn with face covering. She'd just have to claim to be of a specific sect, should anyone see her. Plenty of those went around as healers during a war.

He filled her in on a few details after she changed, Filia tipped the maintainers for their effort, then they were off to play.

Xelloss went over a few details of the situation with her, then they were off.

The war machines that Azonge had left in the country were the kind that left devils (especially the less than bright servants of Dynast) wondering whether or not they should project to preserve their ego. Further complicating this was their partial workings of Zenaffa, by being able to block out magic to a degree.

The real reason they devils hadn't gone full out yet, however, was that this war served as a harvest. With their dark lord stuck up north, they had to capture people alive to bring them to him for feeding. They weren't supposed to outright everyone.

Xelloss wasn't involved with this part, his job was to hunt down and capture or kill dragons for the same purpose. However, they had him deliver messages at times the dragons disrupted the communication system. This gave them an opening, but Xelloss needed a few tailored truths.

"How _did_ you avoid being sent to finish off everyone in the armies?"

"I asked Dynast why his home made priest hadn't succeeded yet, using such a way that made it a matter of pride. Beyond that, while it's relatively easy to wipe out all life in a district with a handwave, I get away with slow killing by claiming a need to feed."

Right. Feeding. Torture when the devils watched. He's probably look as happy and relaxed like right now when he did it, or maybe worse. She wished for the time when seeing him didn't constantly put blood in her mind.

She diverted that chain of explanation to the specifics of Xelloss's no lie habit. It might be a weakness for deception, but also a strength since the devil lords all knew about it. Fabricate the right scenario, and he had solid credibility. It just required some acting on Filia's behalf.

For example, if Xelloss said that the devil guards needed to go elsewhere to look at a particular gate because he had seen a hostile dragon nearby, this was entirely true because he'd asked Filia to hit him five minutes earlier at that location.

It was also accurate to say that given current enemy position, an attack at the northern camp might be happen. Filia was there, after all, and Xelloss didn't comment on the _likelihood_ of the attack or its actual _level_ of threat.

It counted to say something was orders from above if Filia sat five meters into a tree while snapping something at him. Really not his fault nobody asked him to define who the vengeful lady giving them was.

It was true too that he needed to return to his post quickly when Grauscherrer summoned him for thinly veiled interrogation about the war efforts, because Filia shouldn't be alone too long. Grauscherrer didn't ask what the hurry was about — he was expected to know and it made bad form not to.

Nobody wondered when Xelloss said he knew only a little of the beast lord's current plan, because he didn't say his _liege_ the Beast Monarch, just the beast lord, which was a fair definition of miss Filia and her household of beastfolk with complimentary cat and birds. Nobody questioned about why he dropped the lord definition, and Xelloss honestly had no idea what plans Filia was hatching in his absence. Filia made a point of timely mentions.

Filia built one of her rock friends in a glade and had a one-sided conversation with them about the trap in Dills; the trap where they lulled the devils in a false sense of security and waited for them to launch their full invasion, at which Pokota and a new set of tanks would teleport in. Xelloss made sure to overhear and report this to Dynast, and then to Dalphin, while making sure they recalled Dills had been weaponized by the dragons long ago. He'd seen it himself. Dalphin got on Dynast's case for nearly walking into a trap and Xelloss bragged about how he'd seen it coming and wasn't Dynast fortunate to have him on the team?

She covered her face at the end of the day and wandered into an outskirt village, where she offered to heal the injured. Her ears stuck out, they assumed she was a rare merciful elf. Xelloss wasn't keen on the idea of her going out and being seen, but didn't stop her.

Filia didn't count whom she helped, though it tempted her to do so.

At least, not until someone asked her to please bless a graveyard because the devils kept reanimating the buried victims. Typical demonic food service doubling as warfare.

Filia did know circles she could cast, but she could imagine devils to break them. Xelloss's fall guy worked around here, who was about a fourth of his power, and thus strong enough to break anything she could cast that didn't involve raising conspicuous barriers.

No need to get convoluted, though. Once Ragrairyos gave in, she suggested her a contract with mother earth. It would both make the graves blessed enough to deter lesser demons and get the bodies disintegrated in no time. That way, she could respect the local customs _and_ prevent further problems. She gathered up what herbs she needed, and waited till Xelloss returned from a job; it wouldn't do if she got caught in the field by devils looking for corpses.

Xelloss might've been the direct many of these people were in the ground, of course. And, with certainty none of this wouldn't have happened if not for Valgarv. She could spin all of that back to herself being inattentive, and then down to Volphied, to genocide, to gods and devils until she stood at the Sea of Chaos, where guilt didn't mean anything anymore.

She waited in the small church till he arrived, gave him a quick run down of what they'd do. He didn't like it either, but for a different reason than Ragrairyos's hyper vigilance. Xelloss might be asked whether he knew what had happened to the demons send to reanimate the corpses. So, Filia directed him to the city's defense squad and he could figure out some way to aid them, without knowing the fine details. He liked that idea well enough to get on with it right away, and now Xelloss was also the reason others would survive.

Filia figured out at least one thing to tell her mother when she ever met her again : dragon meditation sucked. What they called meditation was nothing to helped her arrange this in any coherent way.

She told the humans to leave her to work alone, implied it was for holy reasons, and secretly enjoyed the room to think.

Far off in the forest, smoke rose. Someone must have done the obvious and cremate their dead. Looking up at the evening sky with only the sounds of nature around her, she found a calmness she hadn't had in the valley of the ancient dragons. Death was all around here too, but didn't remind her with song. The sky was warm yellows and pinks, with only the sound of the wind through the forest and the chirping of trees. There were no gods, not even Ragrairyos. It felt safer here, more distant to her current life.

She only had to turn to see a church, but it was manmade and thus small and quaint.

It occurred to her that around here, she didn't feel as guilty as in the valley, despite being more responsible. Not even as much as on Elmegiddo.

Leave it to Xelloss to ruin the mood by shifting in right behind her, disrupting her latest magic.

"Shouldn't you be killing demon witnesses?"

"I killed them already. Till the Aqualord alerts you of a new wave, I'm covering my bases by feeding. Like this, I can tell Dynast that I just had a delicious meal of misery in the aftermath of the battle, to cover my time. I might as well get it from you," he said.

At least he was giving explanations now. In the past, it would've just been because he felt like it. Nowadays, everything about them felt like a dance of explanations and justifications.

"Fine," she said, keeping her eyes on the fine flowers she'd been trying to weave together. "Get back a few meters, I need to work.

He did that, but didn't take the hint to shut up.

"You know, I kept count for you. I killed those over on that side, they were a threat too big to be contained during transport north and they didn't want to waste any higher ranks on that. I didn't kill those in the city over there, Grau handled them. So, assuming all life is equal to you, I'd say that I'm at about eighty percent and Grau at five because he sat back and let his troops do the work. Now, Grau is entirely on board with the war, while I am not. Does that matter in the equation, or—"

"Xelloss, stop," she said softly. "What do you want?"

"For you to stop hating yourself and start giving yourself time to mourn. I thought the numbers might make it clear how futile it would be, right?"

She threw down the herbs and stood up. "How would you even know this isn't already me mourning?"

"I've done it before." Somehow he looked both harsh and sad at the same time; strange to see on anyone but especially Xelloss. "When the Lord of Nightmares destroyed miss Lina, her mind was _gone_. No soul to carry her to hell, no more of her splendid spirit. For her I let myself mourn. It means giving yourself the time to both grieve and face what happened. You are not doing that."

She didn't know what to do with that information. Part of her wanted to rage because if he did understand loss, then how could he be uncaring about all the suffering he spread? On the other hand, he looked so close to mortal, and for the briefest moment she could see why death meant something different to him.

"You respect the Lord of Nightmares, yet you fear and grieve for what she does?" Filia asked softly, not knowing anything else to say, and in need of a diversion.

"I expect nothing from Her," he said. "If She _is_ by balance and whatever unfathomable dream, who am I to object? Above that, why complain? She must have some affection for the world too, or she would not have returned miss Lina."

"So She has," Filia said. "That doesn't explain it."

"Explain who? Her, or me? She needs none and if She does, we function without Her giving us any answers, so I am content. Heh, I suppose I must sound as ridiculous to you as you do to me. Everything you and I do now, we would not do if not for Valgarv, yet you—" He stopped and seemed to reconsider. " _Why_ do you feel like that? Can you at least explain it? Please."

"Are all these questions just because your orders? I assure you, knowing this won't make our fusion magic better."

"No, that's not it." He shrugged, though he looked far more interested than that gesture implied. "I'm just curious, but I think you might need peace between your proud self and that side that calls you guilty all the time. Let me change my question from before : Why can you not forgive yourself despite all the lives you save, but were ready to forgive Valgarv in when he's done worse than you ever did?"

That made her pause long enough to remember to pick up her work. It wasn't new information, exactly, to hear she had a double standard here. However, the way he put it irked her. She must look ridiculous, and no doubt both Luna and Lina would scoff if they ever heard about this.

Of all things, it was pride that prompted her next choice.

"You think big existential secrets are some sort of trade, right? If I explain you this, how about you ... let's see, ... explain your fascination with miss Lina to me. Oh, and while you're at it, your fascination with everything. A thousand years wandering must've gotten you a lot to see."

"We don't need to trade, I would tell you that regardless. It's just that you didn't ask before."

"Take it or leave it, Xelloss. You asked the right question this time, but it's a limited offer."

Sitting down on the edge of a statue, he said, "Deal."

Filia finished casting a spell, then prepared the next set of herbs. Now she began to talk, as much to herself as to him.

"Like you were formed by what they expected of you, my clan controlled me too. While not in the way of forced obedience with a sheer command, I was trained to obey through belief in sin and salvation. I feared judgment of my elder more than of my god. They didn't need compulsive voices to make me act a certain way, I was theirs every second of the day. That's a lasting scar too. I can't _not_ feel responsible for what you do when I just barely convinced myself to ... that I don't need to atone to _him_. I'm still counting those who he could have demanded that from, some of them alive. My mother likely one of them.

Valgarv is both easier to _consider_ as a sinner and harder to _feel_ contempt towards.

He appeared as the perfect story of salvation for a priestess like me. A fallen dragon, in need to be saved from his own darkness. Dragons are born to be the keepers of the peace, so I believed he _had_ to have an inner goodness that I could appeal to. If not in my temple anymore, I had faith in the story of a fallen hero brought back to the light.

When I learned what my people had done, it was all too easy see him as the victim only. I'd reasoned he wasn't evil, just in pain. I could save him from that and the world would be right. He turned our roles around and charged me to atone by ending the world with my own hands, not unlike the tests gods would give their faithful. End the world, or don't atone. There was no right answer, so I hoped to find a third way. The riddle I had to solve to be worthy of my new faith."

"Then you took the burden of Valgarv's choices, his sins yours to bear as you exchanged an impassive god for a malicious messiah." He got a strange smirk after that. "Now, what I don't understand, you need a saint in your life for the world to feel right yet you're ignoring the obvious."

He pointed at her, which Filia found absurd. "That's not how it works, Xelloss. I can't be my own ... besides, I'm way too deep into dirty business to be."

"I beg to differ. People have more use for ragtag priests on the road who know when to play foul than for distant prayers in cathedrals. Well, maybe not always when it's me, but in general."

"Hmm. I'll see what I will be later. For now, you and I just have to accept my feelings don't make much sense." She took up the flowers and moved on to the next grave. Xelloss stayed where he was, watchful but silent.

"Also, did you know that another part of how we dragons mourn is by remembering, recounting and considering what has transpired? It's not all, but it's always been the first step."

That got one of those rare open eyed smiles.

**· · · · · · ·**

_"The shield is open! Filia, wake up!"_

The god's voice voice tore Filia from her sleep while the energy to teleport already kindled around her. She scrambled out of her shelter to the water's edge, where the talisman already waved up. The second she touched it, the glow of teleportation enveloped them and she transformed at the same time.

Upon emergence, Filia found herself in the cold midnight over the sea. Without the moon, the stars weren't enough to see in the physical world, and the astral plane only had the distant light of movement of Vrabazard.

Catching the wind, she swooped where Ragrairyos led her.

"Rangort's shield is still up, but the fusion barrier isn't. We'll take a few more jumps to get closer."

From the talisman came a fog of power around Filia and hurled her closer to the island, so fast that Filia fear she'd splatter onto Rangort's shield. Ragrairyos assured her momentum wouldn't matter.

Before they even got close enough to see, Rangort's shield opened at the top. A pillar of light shot into the sky and the fusion shield began forming again, reforming up around it. Central to the light was a familiar blue body writhing out and expanding only to draw back in. Filia had seen the same before, around Lyos in Kataart.

"Damn it, I think Rangort's trying to claim my power!"

Desperate, Filia acted on her first impulse. Pushing all her power out through the talisman, she reached for Luna Inverse.

 _"Luna! Luna, stop! Don't let Rangort have it!"_ Filia called. _"Please, it'll kill her!"_

The pillar's fusion shield flickered, and in this instant Ragrairyos pulled all her power out. The pillar broke and scattered, drowning both planes in vibrant blue. Filia closed her eyes against the light, but the rush of power tore at her senses.

Within seconds it was over. The talisman had fallen from her claw, trailing somewhere behind her. Ragrairyos seeped out, first small. Her power reattached seamlessly, far quicker than it had happened with Lyos in Kataart.

Yet she did not mend quick enough. The pillar vanished not from being withdrawn, but being cut off. The wider fusion shield was back.

"What?"

She tried to reach Luna again, but the flow ended at the edge of the shield. Instead of Luna, there was void and distortion ...

Wait, that wasn't there before ...

Vrabazard had seen it and roared this way. Ragrairyos tried teleporting them away, but the distortions of the area threw them off.

Filia could do nothing but hold onto Ragrairyos, who now hurled herself closer to the island tried drawing attention.

She got a response. The barriers opened again, the pillar reappeared and tried pulling her in. For a second Filia thought this was right, but Ragrairyos braced against it with all her power.

She caught a glimpse of Luna's thoughts now. Luna leaked, like she was in a perpetual state of half sleep. One pervasive idea underlay Luna's senses now : double cross Lucifer.

Ragrairyos's roar snapped her out of her focus a second before the light blinded her.

"You need to teleport us away!" Ragrairyos shouted as she slipped into the talisman. Filia took a jump of maybe four hundred meters to the left, closer to the island.

The pillar broke apart above her, confused on where to go, but still leaked towards her.

"Get back to the valley of the ancients!" Ragrairyos snapped in her ears. "Before any devils sees you here!"

Filia didn't want to, tried to find a way to teleport within the barrier, but couldn't navigate. The shield only let the pillar through, which drowned out any sense of the inside.

"Go!" Ragrairyos urged her. Vrabazard careening towards them served as extra prompt.

Filia jumped away, further and further until back in the valley. Here, the energy of Megiddo obscured any trace of Ragrairyos.

Chaotic flow replaced with serenity, Filia had time to process what just happened. The whole event had been maybe ten minutes and felt shorter. A blur passing by.

Already regrets crept in. She should have said something else to Luna, anything to make her realize. _I'm alive._ Filia began to wonder whether she was just poor at convincing people.

Ragrairyos drew together into the small form of Granny Aqua. "Well, that was interesting. I am not doing that again, and you need to quit hesitating."

"I'm sorry," Filia muttered, still dazed from the shroud of energy. "Are you whole now? Did that at least work?"

"The pillar's call wasn't on me for more than a second, I will be fine, but I need a few hours to get my body to work right ... ah, I have fresh inside memories to process. Do you want a verbal summary or a vision?"

"I'll take the vision, please," Filia said, and was obliged.

The godly doll had been without direction, but could observe. Luna's presence compelled it to follow her lead, which they eventually picked up on.

The exact machinations were unclear, but someone had done something that planted the idea that Rangort could absorb the power of Ragrairyos. Luna had compelled the doll to move into position; her and Zelas had then lowered the shield to draw in the part of Ragrairyos's power still outside.

At this point, the machine had exploded for some reason, causing it to lose grip of the holy power.

That covered, Ragrairyos shared various key pieces that her doll body had seen. It confirmed what Zelgadis had said, on both Rangort and Zelas secluding themselves. They were rebuilding the machine and didn't tell anyone what it was for. Most people suspected it was just to accommodate the new purpose of merging Earthlord with Aqualord, but some of the things Luna had been sent to retrieve, and orders she had given to the dragons, shed doubt on that.

Valwin and Orun had tried getting involved in the project, but Valwin continued being rebuked on behalf of hir persisting disharmony. That was all Ragrairyos had registered in doll form; without focus it did not attempt to record everything that went down in the corridors.

"Zelas controls the machine and feeds the fusion, so our question is, how do we disbalance her, or at least Luna?" Ragrairyos said. "From what my extension decided to eat, Luna is feeling entirely to chill with everything and ... ah, I think I get it now. Luna's dissolving Zelas of the affective part of her emotions. There's an excess of negativity being cast away from Zelas's area. How inconvenient."

"What's going on with them? Stop the cold facts, you must have an opinion, right?"

"In layman terms, I would call their relationship a codependent clusterfuck," Ragrairyos said. "Luna doesn't feel the sadness or disgust that normally makes victims excessively sympathize with their captors, so for the most part she just barrels on as her usual self-serving fiasco. However, she experiences both the liking the captor and the diminished cognitive space. Just because she doesn't full out experience sorrow or disgust doesn't mean she's immune to its related psychological effects. That kind of thinking started some time during her captivity on Wolfpack Island, I guess it lasted. Zelas for her part does regard her in some way, so I guess she might lean on her now."

Filia wished she could glare like astral beings do, just to make this damn god feel a little put on the spot. "And why, pray tell, did you not tell this to me or anyone else? I thought it just meant bad emotional attachment, not something this severe. We could have done something about it on the island!"

"Luna has always been a mess, but she wasn't unhappy with her condition nor in lethal danger, so it didn't matter to me," she said. "I suppose I should learn to account for future developments better. Anyway, we could have done a lot of things different, didn't we? I wonder whether having made a magical recording with signature would've been enough to convince them ..."

"No time for speculation, we have to do something!"

"I agree we should move ahead because of the risk that those two mess up the machine. The last thing we need is for us to have Valgarv figure out how to override the virus while we are undoing changes to the machine," she said sharply. "However, your reasons are just that some people are deteriorating."

"My reasons are that there are people dying all over the world _and_ my friend is attached to a devil _and_ my other friend is stuck in in another world!"

She kicked over a pillar, but reconsidered. Rather than wreck the ruins, she teleported to the nearest mountain and spend a few minutes laserbreathing it full of holes. Then she sat down and felt awful for how good it felt to steam off.

"Better now?" Ragrairyos said. "I can't really tell."

"Of course you can't, you left that behind," Filia said. By now, she was thoroughly fed up with uncaring astral life.

**· · · · · · ·**

When Xelloss appeared in the valley of the ancients next morning, those words had grown into intent. The moment Ragrairyos detected Xelloss in the valley, Filia teleported to him.

"Xelloss, we need to talk," she said.

He looked a little off put, probably had come for time killing again. "About what?"

Ragrairyos manifested in full form above them and said, "Those on Elmegiddo are changing the plan and the machine. We need to speed up our own scheme, preferably before Zelas does more rash things."

"My liege the Beast Monarch? Don't be silly."

Ragrairyos took charge of explaining what, precisely, they knew about the island. Filia added in what Zelgadis had told her. Xelloss was skeptical at first, but uneasy by the end of the story.

"... so if Zelas is willing to give Rangort the power of Ragrairyos, despite her fear of Rangort finding out the truth, she isn't thinking clear," Ragrairyos said for closing.

"My liege wouldn't stray from the plan without consulting miss Lina, not now we know she truly is the Apostle of Chaos."

"Would she? Even now that you're gone?"

"She would be angry about my apparent betrayal, but not burdened. The past is the past, we don't carry baggage from it, let alone are our lives built on it. The Greater Beast would never be so unstable she'd lose her mind on my loss."

"Just loss?" Filia said. "That's all you think that happened? Even if you can taste the despair and betrayal, you don't know what's happening in the mind. You don't know what it's like to _live_ with betrayal when it gnaws at your thoughts and lies and breaks you down. It changes how you _think_."

"She is far stronger than _you_ are. There must be a different explanation."

"You stubborn ... apparently she's not! You astral beings are all about power. You can't deny your own power or you implode because it's denying your identity, right? When you trust someone, you give them a little power over you. It doesn't matter whether it's trust that's felt or trust as a rational choice. Broken trust means you were wrong about a foundation in your life. And when it's broken _faith_? Then you're wrong about how the world works. Faith is like the child of hope and trust and a kind of reason. When these die, it tears down the sense of self."

"Could we talk about this with less nauseous words?"

Oh, for all the pillars of heaven, was there no way to make him think? "Sunshine and rainbows and fluffy pink unicorns, Xelloss. Radiant roses and sparkly weddings. Just cut it out. Blind faith drove me into the hands of a genocidal monster. And this—"

"You are not my liege," she said, an edge of venom to his voice. "Our understanding of the Lord of Nightmares is nothing like your faith. We know She exists. What else is there to it?"

"Then _you_ have no faith in Her, just respect," Ragrairyos said. "You can take the world as it comes and never had to make choices about what you are like. You never had to guess. Zelas started out loyal to Shabranigdu, and she only knows the Lord of Nightmares sent you back. Now that this is gone, is she going back to her first option, or is she going to find a third, or will she abandon it all?"

"Neither if you even have yourselves figured out, what would you know about her?"

That was it. Nearly fuming, Filia got in his face. "Let's talk about what we know. I have been a priest too. Not the roadside variety, but the cathedral brand, and that cathedral broke down seven years ago. I've seen it in glory and in pieces. Now I live in the rubble, still waiting for the high priest to return and tell me how to rebuild. Faith can be a selfish thing, kept around to make one feel strong when there's nothing else to hold onto. Zelas can't know about Siephied being sent back and miss Lina is inexplicably incapable of returning to this world despite chaotic providence, so she only has you for evidence."

"She can't be like that. It's something else," he said through gritted teeth. He had his eyes open, but looked away. Almost like he needed it to be wrong.

"You spent a thousand years being a roadside priest, so you weren't in Zelas's cathedral all that much, right? And when you returned to report, I bet you were always on your knees. Did you ever talk _with_ her?"

His fingers dug into his staff. "I wasn't always kneeling."

"Not literary, but you two were always elder and priest, right? You might have a blind spot as much as I did." Whether it was with her grand elder, the gods or Val.

"Xelloss, it's not alright in there," Ragrairyos said. "Just presume for a moment that Zelas doesn't care to stick to her original plan anymore. What would she do otherwise?"

"I know everything she told me, her plan was logical, it was ... I don't know this either."

Xelloss shifted away to the edge of the ruins, reappearing with his back towards Filia. Maybe he had tried to leave, but his damned curiosity must have kept him. He sat down where he was, back to her, scribbling something in the sand.

Filia was about to pace over to him, but Ragrairyos held her back. "Wait, don't disturb the energy. I don't know what he's doing, but it could be dangerous."

She felt it then. Everything about Xelloss seemed to spread out, then drew back in sharply. He flickered like a candle before his physical form snuffed out. On the astral plane, his usually compact form exploded in a torrent of thick energy. Filia couldn't see Ragrairyos anymore, and the natural flow only remained a thin stream.

"Oh for goodness sake, what's happening now?"

From the darkness, Zelas emerged ... no, not Zelas herself, but a projecting imitating her. On the astral plane, it was still Xelloss. The mirage turned from warrior wolf to wild animal, breaking into a run across the lake. Spreading out with it was a field of chaos. Hollowed out cones spun on their tops, some toppled over. Unstable projected wolves fazed across the ruins, hunting nothing.

Filia took a few careful steps until she sensed something familiar below her feet. There was what Xelloss had scribbled in the earth, enhanced with his own magic: a life law circle etched in darkness. His very essence pierced through the center, or perhaps the circle pierced through him. Beyond it lay a plane Filia had never sensed when awake, but recognized because after all, she had been dreaming her entire life.

Kneeling down, she carefully brushed her hands on the circle.

Like tearing himself inside out, he wrapped around the edges of the gate. The longer Filia looked, the more it felt like he had split his skin open and torn out his guts or brain and now twisted them around in his own hands. Filia clammed a hand over her mouth, instinctive against what must be nausea, but not in her stomach. This sense of wrong went down in the astral plane.

"Stop it, Xelloss," she whispered. "Can you hear me? Come back."

No response from him, at least not directly.

The walls thinned, and the light came back in. Ragrairyos poured around her, her form as condensed as she could be. "Don't worry, we'll get back on his own, just like before. You've seen it, he turned out fine, right?"

Oh gods, she meant when Xelloss has followed her to the valley? She had assumed his teleportation had gone wrong, not ... whatever this was.

"He wasn't fine until after Zelas helped him," Filia snapped. "You need to help me set this right."

"Oh, did she? Let me see, it should not be too different from my transmigration. Mind letting me in for a moment?"

Filia threw open her soul's gate and let the god possess her ... to an extent. She did not let her everything, just what was needed for them to share knowledge.

Possession by Ragrairyos was gentle, contrary to Vrabazard. Ragrairyos and Claire before her had been so cold and pragmatic, she had forgotten this god was kinder. Ragrairyos eased into her mind like a stream, filling in the earth without wearing her down or controlling her body. She offered sight and understanding of the astral world, merging with Filia's own grounded senses and familiarity with Xelloss's energy, they helped each other to work.

Astral bodies were as complex as physical ones, yet at the same time incomparable. They ate and they thought, similar only so far, but the way one thought about it cleared the way. Filia put her hands to work on the circle, both pulling at the flow and on pure astral energy.

Little by little, they pulled Xelloss out of the dream plane. All the while, she rambled below her breath. "You could have warned me, you jerk. _Hey miss Filia, I'm going to defy my own value on not messing with the inherent nature of minds_. I already have so much to worry about and there you go making it worse."

He must have heard that, because he projected a tiny green rabbit cat thing that jumped on her back to pull her hair. It relieved her more than it annoyed and she cracked a smile. If he had room for this, he wasn't losing himself.

Quite so much, at least. Could he tell she thought this?

A cathedral clouded the sky and she didn't remember when it had risen. Pitch black, pale blue, with a single dark spot in a distant horizon. The sanctuary before the Sea of Chaos, but she only knew because the dreamer thought of it this way.

Filia couldn't tell anymore whether the leaking was just on her hands or in her mind. Her dream corridor open, little bits dripped inside her own energy and thoughts. Those two things weren't quite the same ...

She stopped prying at just his energy at the gate, and thought about what he tried. Understanding Zelas, and before that, Filia on the command of Zelas. For all his spite to Filia playing the martyr to a worthless cause, he practiced self mutilation without much hesitation for Zelas.

Xelloss wasn't just dreaming, he dreamed of being someone else. Of being Zelas, of how she would act if he subtracted this and added that traits ... not if he were her, but just her.

Xelloss was _made_ to want to serve Zelas. He didn't suffer along with her, so when he served her it wasn't to alleviate his own discomfort, he wasn't urged by anything negative. He did just. Only a creature of complete selfishness would create someone so selflessly devoted to them. Imagining oneself as another was anathema to astral beings. Xelloss had found a way to do it regardless, because it served Zelas.

Now Zelas had Luna under her thrall, and Filia had to force herself on the here and now, rather than speculate wildly what that meant for Luna.

For Xelloss, being made to be devoted to Zelas meant that he didn't think about her as a person when he betrayed her. She was a rule in his life, a foundation to function. He always learned from observation, not from innate understanding.

Filia herself couldn't tell anymore whether what she came to know now was innate understanding or just years building up. Small ways he had spoken about Zelas blending with the singleminded purpose, seamlessly blending with pieces of raw mind passing by her own soul, eased along by the immortality pledge.

Ragrairyos piped up for the first time. He wasn't yet considering Zelas so much as hesitating; she herself knew what that was like all too well. Through the much of dark sensation and soul gates, Filia dregged up memories of her own life — so strangely distant now — to remember her own shared dreams with Luna constantly got derailed. Of course, Xelloss did not really dream, just was himself.

He needed a direction. "Xelloss, have you ever heard of Radam Kadmon? The primordial soul named in a sect that was born from dragon religion but deemed heretical later, for it preached the reformation of the world. Radam Kadmon is the personification of this change.

Even I cannot turn a mass murderer as a messiah, but I saw Radam Kadmon in him. He looked sacred to me despite all his sin because he promised a change to a world where we didn't need the word for sin. What did Zelas see in Lina Inverse?"

A mirage of Lina appeared, rendered in fine detail. She said something to Filia, but there was no sound. Then the Lina mirage turned around, and there stood Zelas as an aristocratic lady, yet with the wings of her truest form. The two women observed one another for a moment, then Zelas lunged at Lina.

Darkness shrouded everything before Filia could see the outcome, then restarted.

The scene played out in subtly different ways over and over, faster every time, shifting without transition into a maddening hum. Other scenes — no, memories started to blend in, overlain and simultaneous. Filia needed all her focus to get the work done, until the looping scene faded and the other memories become more prominent.

She couldn't tell anymore whether they were projections around her, or leaking into her mind somehow; she should be able to do that and it unnerved her that she couldn't. Lina and Zelas continued being the central figures, but they no longer interacted.

At last, Lina went down her own path, Zelas another. Filia's hands burned from the darkness, but she felt more like the completion of tough work than tormented. She closed the dream circle.

All the chaos around Xelloss pulled back onto the astral plane, condensing into the cone he should be. His human projection pulled together and fell to the ground.

Only now did it strike her as strange that when injured his reflex wasn't to stop projecting like other devils, but to push out his human projection to the physical world.

He struggled to get up on his knees but didn't seem injured, just disoriented. Rather than stand, he just stared down. She knelt at his side, unsure of what to do now. "Xelloss, are you alright?"

"As much as I can be ... how much could you tell? You were prying." He sounded rather offended.

"Well pardon me. I sometimes just get visions, especially when there are gods around. Besides, I can't not watch when I have to fix your whole astral body. Why did you do that anyway?"

"I was looking at my blind spot. If she would—if I would—or of the Lord of Nightmares left us without ever changing her mind. I don't know, but ... " he muttered. "My liege won't want a third way, I think. She will take risks. Even if she gets a talisman and manages to contact miss Lina, we won't like what she's doing with that machine in the meantime. She won't stop now, and she can't believe that the Lord of Nightmares wants to destroy the world ... Whatever she becomes ..."

Claire appeared in her child form, clapped her hands with a flat expression and said, "Great. You could have just taken our word that something was wrong."

He ignored that and instead asked, "Aqualord, did you experience this too? Did you leave Claire behind out of fear?"

"I didn't leave that part behind, it's just on hold," she said. "Just like you're not leaving yourself behind, or are you? I will ... admit that _justified_ fear contributed strongly to that choice, but I remember how to be that way. I simply choose not to be so."

He still wouldn't look up. When he spoke, it was stiff and forced. "We can use Valgarv's existing plan to tunnel below the barrier. We'll give the virus extra instructions."

"I hope you're right. I'd rather not find myself before an impenetrable barrier when we could have done it safer," Claire said. "Anyway, see whether you're functional before you go back to the demon clan. I'm going to see whether this mess wrecked our trapwork. Oh, and I'll have to explain the ghosts what went down."

Filia had it up to here with astral beings right now.

"See whether — for peace's sake, miss Claire. He just tore himself inside out and you're acting like it was a nuisance? Shouldn't your plight to help at least make do a double check?"

"I'm tending to survival and happiness, he's not gonna be happy anytime soon regardless of what condition he is in. Now please excuse me."

With that, the god stopped drifted off to the nearest patch of ghosts and slammed the door of Filia's soul. It cut off connections that she hadn't even noticed growing, both to the god and the devil.

Now Claire was gone, Xelloss finally looked up.

When his eyes opened, it usually was threat or shock or a certain kind of amusement. She didn't think she'd seen this one before, almost like weariness and horror. "How can you live like this? How can you bear existing when you're constantly feeling along with others?"

"Oh, it's easy when people like Valgarv, Zelas or Rangort _don't_ use me as tool. Or you," she said, summoning a more or less sincere lightness. "Besides, I don't really have a choice."

He didn't have much of one either. Luna would probably complain about her bar still being too low, but Filia forgave him — again.

"We should contact miss Lina and inform her of everything," she said, quickly getting up to fetch the talisman.

Xelloss still sat in the same spot when she returned. He took the sliver, but only ran his thumb over it once before putting it down. "I don't want to see her right now."

Xelloss not wanting to meet Lina Inverse. Imagine that.

"Did I put you back together wrong?" she said, touching his shoulder, trying to sense whether something was off in his energy. With the circles gone, she couldn't tell anymore. "Xelloss, answer me. You better not be getting like Zelas, angst and—

"I am _not_ being angsty. I am just very, very disturbed. There is a big difference!" He crossed his arms, offended again, but not the blood curling way. One eye closed now.

Ah, this was the kind of Xelloss she could deal with. "I didn't say you were, which you would have known if you had let me finish. Angst and emotional detachment and whatever are both mayor blind spots."

"I noticed that much, but it doesn't make me better at figuring what I miss," he said. "I first have to choose to think like that."

Choice. Another thing to bring down and consider all the way down to the Sea of Chaos, where it didn't matter.

She stood up, brushed off and went to her den. After grabbing the thickest blanket, she returned to Xelloss and sat down before him, back turned.

"You can fix my hair."

"Really?"

"If we're going to move soon, I need to get used to you anyway."

"Hmmhmm."

"That and I'm not going to stand before Valgarv with any more marks of him on me."

"Hmm."

"I did notice you like my hair, you know. The clan's going to be suspicious if you rejoin them inexplicably upset, right? You need to calm down or liven up or whatever is and I need to disprove miss Claire about your mood. So there, four good excuses."

"Of course," he said with a small smile. "And I can guess the one that came before them."

"Hmm," she said, because one got what they gave.

Pulling up her knees and looked at the candles, and not the ghosts.

"If I do it right through the contract, it'll shrivel once the contract ceases," Xelloss said. "I'll just have to fabricate the material and remend it, which will take a little longer. On the bright side, you dragons are part magical matter so I don't have to go find a source for keratin."

"Just get on with it," she said, and tried not to worry about what that meant.

Xelloss with his hands in her hair wasn't as awful as it ought to be, largely thanks to him being actually careful. He would take a few locks at a time and work in a steady rhythm. It was a different kind of calm than with chanting ghosts and detached gods. Absurd universe. The same universe that might get them all killed.

"What did you mean with putting me back together wrong?"

"Not much, just ... miss Luna messed herself up a lot despite doing emotional magic her entire life. I was grasping in the dark when pulling you back."

"Hmm ... it was miss Luna's gate that I used. Say, once you start tampering with Valgarv's through the dreamscape, does this give him similar option to change you?"

"Yes, but just option. He probably never learned to mess with that plane before he became a chimera, so he won't know what to do. Don't worry, he knows even less than I do."

Volphied might have known more, though, but risks like that weren't worth fretting over.

"I didn't realize dream magic and emotional cutting were related," he said, almost sounding carefully neutral. He either was very focused on her hair, or he tried not to be obviously worried. They could both use a diversion, really.

"All types of holy magic are connected a little. There's compartments, but they're made by the same walls. We can go over that later, though. Right now you owe me stories about the world and miss Lina in it."

**· · · · · · ·**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Sword of Emo is a reference to something in the Japanese version, Zelgadis is prone to accidental puns whenever he's trying to sound deep and dangerous.
> 
> Xelloss rather missed the mark with Zelas, though he at least gets it's urgent. If the actual Zelas were there, she would have attacked Filia and there would be no multiple scenarios or speculation. Xelloss knows Zelas attacked Milgazia, but to him Milgazia is the anti-fun while he likes Filia, and that influences how he approaches Zelas's reaction to them in a new scenario.


	39. Val's Missense

**· · · · · · ·**

Five millenniums of freedom and death, children turned to those who killed them. Wails beyond the night, the night is not darkest before the dawn for there is no night and day. Only the motion of the world hidden by metaphors. Gods and devils did not exist _for_ the world, oh no. In many an other world, the world existed without them, but power structures had to exist. It didn't need to be the gods.

He had many ideas on what the world had to be, but the dim witted devils made a worthless audience. He killed time by talking to Shabranigdu, whom he didn't have to pretend to be Dark Star to. Too bad Shabranigdu was the worst one to rant at. Nothing but mindless need to destroy the world. Not even any regard for the Lord of Nightmares. Fear and respect, but he'd throw a fit if she came up to him and didn't want to destroy the world.

Dugradigdu still lived in the Black World, but was less than cooperative. Right now, he didn't have much to do except feed on miasma and try to control the hosts.

The facts were that Valgarv had little idea on what to do. He could operate the machinery with ease, and frankly, he'd instilled his own will on Volphied and Dugradigdu to the point they took his directions. In this world, he had the astral side to his advantage. That wasn't the problem.

He needed to adapt the plan for the new situation. With the angelsblood talisman, he had a scarce link to Volphied's true self in the Black World. It wasn't as good as talking to her avatar, but she could at least hint at him being in the right direction. Now he had nothing.

Except Shabranigdu nagging at him to hand over the talisman, so he could do some serious world destruction. As if. Valgarv wasn't so easily tempted, but if he didn't pay attention, Shabranigdu might get it on his own. He needed to act before that happened.

He created his doves to explore the world, hoping to find Lei Magnus. Perhaps he could strike up an alliance after all, but there was no trace of him. His constructs could only cover so much ground. Not that he needed Lei Magnus, but it would have been useful to have cannon fodder in case any gods got in the way.

Getting to the machine was one thing, making it bring Volphied to this world, kill everyone and overtake all the planes was another and then some. He was supposed to have adapted a body for Volphied before they ever thought about controlling Megiddo or the astral plane. On top of that, Claire had become a god way ahead of schedule, and Lei Magnus was free. Two massive wild cards. The enemy had one talisman, so it was only a matter of time before Lina got back in touch with this world. They'd seek a way to incarnate Luke and adjust Milina to be Siephied's conduit. They had options to explore, and he didn't have enough.

He lost count of time in the everdark north and its monotone, so when one day a ghost walked into the throne hall, it had his full attention.

Especially since the humanoid was clad in the tradition of ancient dragons, when they took human form.

"What are you doing here?"

The ghost stopped before him, looked him over and sighed. "I had hoped she was wrong."

"What? Who?"

The ghost didn't answer, just turned around, shaking their head. "What a pity. You could have done so much good."

What the ... what did they _think_ he was doing?

The ghost faded away, but was soon replaced by another, and another. He asked them what they wanted, but only got similar responses : disappointment, sighs, regret.

For every one that vanished, two or three came in place until they filled every room in the castle. With them the sound increased, building up from the outside. A quick look out a window revealed fields of ghosts stretched over the sea, and some confused devils near them.

Every single one of the ghosts had their eyes fixed on Valgarv. Countless eyes bearing down on him, headed by faces that he had distant memories of. Elders, names his parents had taught him to revere, before they all had died, and reverence with them.

The ghosts sang in a language he knew, though the lyrics were unfamiliar. Their content was not : acceptance, the world, and regret. When the fate of the damned came up, he understood they were composed in hell.

From the chorus, a humanoid elder emerged, flanked by two companions. They flowed to him without a single step. Closer now, he distantly recognized them, but could not recall their names.

"Valtera, we have come to speak to you," said the supreme elder.

"My name is Valgarv now, and your words are wasted," he said. "Your pacifism only brought you death."

"As you do to the entire world? The devil speaks of waste."

"What?" Valgarv snapped. "I'm reviving the world in a better way! You'll all come back from hell, don't you get it? I can rebirth who ever I want once I have the power of the gods and devils!"

"We would not be the same as we are now. Our legacy would die if you force all of us into reincarnation at once. That is assuming you can create life that Megiddo would surrender us to."

With those words they filed away, down the halls.

Devils did not see them, only he did. Odd, but not unusual. Any devil curious why he stormed down the halls was killed.

The flock stopped in the central room, which once had been Dynast's main chamber.

There cross that Luna had broken stood again, mended with his own magic. The Elder laid a hand on the intersection.

"Valtera, why did you choose to disgrace our legacy with bloodshed?"

"There's no other way to make this world better," he spat.

Nobody responded. Their voices muddling, they poured out more accusing questions.

"Why did you abandon the name we gave you?"

"How can you disavow the golden dragons for the violence they do in their false belief they may judge the world, right as you yourself claim you are fit to judge the world?"

"We have met those who died because of your crusade. You are just as dreadful as they are."

"You want to take over the world like they did."

"Don't compare me to them! They only wanted the weapon, I set out to change the world."

"Did you know Volphied had such plans when you first decided to unleash Dark Star?" asked another.

He didn't like this, they had it all wrong.

"Get out of here if you don't have anything useful to say!"

But they stayed and he didn't even know what he wanted with them. Variations of the questions repeated and they no longer responded when he answered. Those farther away still sang their hymns, now taking the questions into their rhythm.

Amidst the droning noise, one quiet voice stood out for what it said.

"Valgarv?"

"Young lady, are you here?" he asked, eager to have someone move responsive to interact with. "Come out."

The ghosts moved aside for her to approach, a shining contrast against their solemn, lifeless forms. Some of the power of Siephied lay around her soul,

He sneered at the elder. "How can you stand a golden dragon in your midst?"

"This dragon was unaware of the genocide and opposed it once she found out," they said.

He knew that, but wasn't the point. "She still bears their legacy."

"By that word, would that not mean you should bears ours?" said the elder. "Well, you have delivered us only shame. Rather than peace, you spread the same suffering that befell our clan. You have pronounced yourself worthy to be the world's judge, just as the golden dragons of Vrabazard have done. We ally ourselves with the one dragon who did not. There is no contradiction to our actions, unlike yours."

Filia stopped before him, raising a hand to his cheek. Though not physical, the holiness both repelled the devil's power and resonated with his dragon soul.

"It is not too late yet to stand down," Filia said. "Please, there are other ways to help the world. Don't let your grief cloud your mind."

Filia had the kind of innocence both true and built on lies. She tried to understand the truth, but always missed the mark. Her compassion was just a pointless feeling, devoid of logic and reason. The kind of idiotic simplicity that sought the reduction of pain, but also accepting its existence was the way to go.

He grabbed her arm; unlike her he knew how to handle transdimensional matter. "Don't lecture me, young lady. I am the only one in this world who can clearly see what is needed. You ... you've always thought the child that certain pain is necessary. I say none is needed."

"Then what would your world be? How can you remove pain without removing change? You're trying to bypass natural change, at what cost? Answer me, Valgarv. Please."

Again with the questions, it irritated him.

Maybe he should practice purging and remaking souls right here and now, see how far he got without hell's matter or Megiddo's assignment. In his new world, personalities would be managed as easily as Val had been. He rather liked the idea of reforming Filia in the same way, carve away the naivety and install the understanding of his plight. She was perfect to be the first.

"You'll see the cost," he said. "I can show you now."

"Would you let me show you something first? You may do as you wish if that fails, I will not resist."

"It _will_ fail, young lady," he said. "I have seen all of this world and the Black World. There is nothing you could know better."

She looked so lost when she answered with, "Just one try, in name of whatever I might have meant to Val, if not you."

He smirked, intent to pull out the Val program the moment it failed and have it say it meant nothing.

"Go ahead."

A golden circle flared up around them and the ghosts closed in around them.

It took him exactly two seconds too long to realize she had just ignited a beacon to bring power in.

_Too late._

The ice on the walls melted and the holiness took control of the area, snatching up him and all the power of Shabranigdu. He braced against it, but could not summon Shabranigdu's power swift enough.

How was she doing this? As Siephied's channel she might have the energy, there was nothing to tune into ... did she use the ghosts? What? He had to know to undermine it, but a torrent of holiness blocked his senses from all sides. Only Filia and her strange gaze were a constant.

The teleportation had a piercing white color. When it gave way, it was to a dark mountain range, one all to familiar despite the night.

Val had been here three years ago, when he was too young to pay attention to any conversation. He didn't know what was special about this place, how Lina had planted whatever those trees were or the details of Shabranigdu's defeat. Volphied had meant to investigate at some point, but had never come close — Megiddo gazed back, she had always said. They could not afford to be seen.

Once desolate, the valley now thrived with power of eternal blue. The stars above paled to the myriad of blue flames and the shining ghosts between them. Close to the lake stood those who had mastered human transformation, further in the darkness of the mountains flew true dragons. Their darker outlines obscured even the white peaks, and the hymns made way for a cacophony of disjointed questions.

A divine barrier covered the valley, one he could tear through if he tried. Breaking down part of the mountains would be enough to escape, but not to satisfy him. Why go back to the boring upper north with only dull devils as his audience, when here were his own people? Too stubborn to understand! They of all people should understand, yet here they were, lamenting while providing scenery for an intervention.

They should ... where had Filia gone?

For an intervention, there was a distinct lack of people confronting him. None of the ghosts came near, and even their questions become more quiet. He didn't bother listening or answering. The gist was clear, they didn't get it.

He started walking in no particular direction, looking for the one dragon that he needed.

Every step felt heavy, like he was on the brink of sleep. Between the chants of the ghosts was the sound of gongs and other instruments he distantly remembered. More than once, he found the environment entirely different without really knowing how he had gotten there.

In that manner, he found himself before Filia within the seeming blink of an eye.

She stood alone on the shore of a small inlet, calm with her hands clasped in prayer, yet her eyes keen on him. The water rose and ebbed around her feet, not through them.

When he approached, the heaviness fell away. She stood her ground, like she always did.

"Why did we have to be here for me to listen to you?" He circled her, trying to get a hang of the strange flow that made up her power.

"Valgarv, I've spoken with your people. They say there is a way to help the world that isn't so extreme," Filia said.

"What do they know? They've never spoken to Night Dragon and Dark Star. They're dead out of their own ignorance."

"But in hell are Lezo and others hosts, it is them who placed a new way in on the table."

"They're just stalling the inevitable, like you are. What for?"

"Would you believe it's for us to change your mind? I know a thing or two about lying to oneself. The first and foremost being that it's a defense. I've parroted what others told me, but when I realized, I stopped. If you were to realize your words did not add up, would you stop?"

"I'm not wrong, and I'm not deluded like you were _and still are_ ," he said close to her ear. "How can you hope for salvation when you can't even see the truth?"

"You're correct in one way. I can't change anything if I my life is written in bygone bloodshed, so ... I will not."

The hand she had clasped over her shoulder opened. He had only a second to see the chain wrapped around her arm, then pain in his right wing hit. The same chain had shot out behind her neck, piercing the wing below the fetus. It writhed down around, around the arm he had on Filia's shoulder.

Filia jerked at the chain and pulled his arm away.

"What—"

Hooking her her under his palm, she tore loose his other arm. The second chain bore through his other wing.

"And what I do change about myself won't be the kind you do at a whim. You went from claiming I had but one way to atone, to saying it was about purification, not sacrifice, and then back to my atonement?" Now she looked back, and her face was nothing like the demure woman before. "Whatever your game is, I know that I owe you _nothing_."

Her dress flared out like fire, singing his flesh and distorting the astral plane. Flares of yellow dropped upward around them, moving like both water and fire. Her was holiness lit his frame with light, and so she sensed its structure.

She strode away from him, pulling the chains tight and a trail of growing resentment in her wake, mingling with her sadness.

"The one I was before would have forgiven you a thousand times if only you'd looked down and seen what the world still has for you. Who I am now sees you always had been looking down, only to be displeased with the world, so to hell with everyone else who wanted it. You seek to play god."

"As if the gods of this world are worth anything! Someone has to take control of this mess!"

"Yes, we need change, but _you_ don't bring that. You promised a world without suffering, but you already knew that the gods and devils didn't cause all war. You have seen the fate of mister Jillas and mister Gravos and who knew how many others. Either your excuse is another lie, or you would put the truth to it by taking away free will. You bring the end of all we achieved so far."

"Achieved? It wasn't enough to stop the genocide of my people!"

"Nor was it enough to stop you from killing other people, nor Erulogos from killing my people when he didn't have to, nor Xelloss from going too far time and time again. This world needs no mercy kill, it needs less of certain people to live out their power unchecked," she said without looking back.

"What would you know about the world? You never asked the right questions until I shoved the truth in your face," he spat. He tried to get closer — he could eat her emotions, but he wanted to see her eyes. Yet the chains dug into his flesh with more power than they should. Where did she get this strength?

"The truth? There has been no world war for over a thousand years. Societies evolve and change for the better by working on it, even if it takes long. Your people have suffered and are gone, yes, but there is no connection between that and the happiness of others. You have neither the right nor the wisdom to decide for them."

The more she spoke, the less she appeared the fragile little lady. Every word cut into him, drawing on his astral core. She had to know what she was doing. Lacing astral attacks in words ... she wasn't allowed to be able to do this.

"Shut up! Shut up, _shut up_!"

He brought out the Val program, meaning to change himself into it, but the chains jarred with his own flow. It would be easier to project him apart, so he did exactly that.

"Mom, please stop hurting us," Valgarv had him say — the simple command of "stop" was enough to translate into that. Val had always been oriented around ensuring Valgarv's intentions.

Filia looked back at last. He had a second to see her harshness before it broke away at Val's sight. Out came the tears, and her next words choked back in her throat.

He wanted her to throw herself around the child and surrender, but she stood her ground. The tears she wiped away, even as they kept coming.

"That is not my child. You destroyed him before he could ever be." Rather than embrace the projection, she raised a hand and gathered magic. Without another word, she set Val alight with a Chaotic Disintegrate.

The torrent of light blinded him fully, but the emotions she gave off were a mouthful for the power of Shabranigdu. Staying around her might be worth it for the meal alone — far away, Shabranigdu mocked him for telling himself that he wanted to stay. He refused to hear it, he had better things to do, like wring the blood from her.

This time he pulled out Volphied's form, pushing her own power into the puppet. Through this he jumped at Filia. With one slash, he tore her skull and chest open.

Limp she fell down, blood pouring out across the ground. At the same time, the chains faded away, the fire died and the fores holding him down fell away. He draw back the fake Volphied.

The ghosts fell silent, and Valgarv was left empty.

What now? Get back to the north somehow, wait to get more control, organize the armies.

Yet he stayed where he stood, looking down at the body. Maybe he should have saved her for a more fitting death. He had entertained so many ideas of how she'd witness the end of the world. Maybe ... hadn't she been dead before? No, couldn't be.

With her new found spite, she wasn't really unique anymore. Plenty of others would be like that, it wasn't the same anymore. Many looked at him with hatred, she had been the only one to look with the appropriate sorrow for him, and only that.

He waited for her ghost, but instead her flesh knitted back together. Even her clothes mended.

When she opened her eyes, they were almost triumphant. Almost, if he hadn't been able to sense the remainder of her emotions. Still betrayal there, even after all this ... but it didn't matter _enough_.

Unsure of what he wanted, he reached for her, but she teleported away the instant he moved.

At the edge of the clearing, she reappeared with her back towards him again.

"Filia, don't you dare play with me!"

"Hmm." The kind of contemptuous sound she usually gave Xelloss. "You hypocrite."

With those words, she vanished into the forest. Really _vanished_ , for the trees obscured the astral plane, where they were nothing but white blue pillars to Megiddo.

Didn't matter, he had other senses.

He folded his wings back and shot into the forest. The moment he passed the first trees, pain sawed through his upper body and one of his legs. Grinding to a halt, he found scorch marks all over himself like he had run into wires, but nothing that caused it.

No ... not wires. The burn marks were of chains.

Ahead, a branch cracked and footsteps grew distant. He pushed on, only to be met with more of those infernal chains. The hollow didn't do everything it should do. What were these things even made of? Biting through the pain, he pushed himself on.

Where _was_ she?

There, the red blur betrayed her. He flew after her, not caring whether his wings tore on the trees or what he knocked over.

Where ever she had stepped, the chains down through him. Every time he ran through them, they singed the magic of his construction. Not even Volphied's craft could withstand the neutralizing effect, so it tore into the very fabric of his hollow and his shield. What should be his protection now became a weakness, but he couldn't just let her get away with this.

Without the patience to untangle it, he had to seep power from the hosts through the talisman, but he didn't have the patience. She _had_ to be shut up, one way or another.

The chanting returned, closing in all around him. It drowned out the sound of her running, but still he caught glimpses of that dress.

He herded her on till she lost the cover of trees, onto a clearing. Even there, she escaped his sight.

Here stood a small dome cathedral, barely tall enough to rise over the trees. By standards of ancient dragons this place was minuscule, reserved only for those who could take human form. Despite its age, it still looked whole.

Inside was the echo of her steps and a growing light. He landed on the ground and folded his wings closer to himself, closing the distance on foot. _Because you hurt yourself too much_ , Shabranigdu said in the distance. Hah, as if he understood anything about holiness and respect.

He expected flashbacks when he crossed the borders, but they did not come. It was the chains that followed him in, moving through the walls like they did not matter. The ghosts would not enter, but they covered the ground behind him. Fine, let them see. Some might even had been here with him.

In the onset of the war, he had been here once. The Ancient Dragons prayed only to Siephied, none of the other gods. They had no statues or symbols, but plenty of memorials. Burning herbs and hallowed water had once filled basins, but more so they had attended to advanced machinery that employed holy direction and power.

Now it was empty, save for one raised basin that Filia lit with a spell. The crackle of dried out herbs filled the room.

He panted for breath and when he spat out the words, it sounded weaker than he wanted to.

"What the hell are you doing? Nothing's here that could change my mind."

"I never said we'd change your mind by _showing_ you something. What would change you, truly? You rant about how terrible the servants of the gods are, but when you yourself serve a god who would like to stop a genocide? You stab him because he didn't make his mission revolve around you," Filia said. "I could lock myself into an endless cycle of forgiveness by waiting for you to stop making everything about you."

The sad little lady had been replaced by a typical golden dragon. How boring. He gathered up a holy spell, intent to kill her with her own means, but right then Filia turned around and looked him in the eyes. He saw everything he hated, and that she hated at last.

With the crossing of her arms, she tensed all the chains around him, shackling him in place — every single one he'd run into in the forest. They'd never gone through him, but anchored into his astral body. All of this weight now bound him to the earth.

He should have noticed. How had he not noticed? He's wrapped himself around their blade, followed their bait like a fool.

The chain pulled his wings and arms apart. The trees blazed up until the forest seemed like standing in the sun; the light pouring in nearly blinded him.

For once, Shabranigdu agreed with him and he did not have to leech off power. The full, free flowing burst of energy broke from his wings and hands in all directions. The cathedral groaned under the weight and the trees outside incinerated, but Filia stood untouched in the center.

As the inferno lowered, the sound of clapping emerged.

"Wonderful, miss Filia!"

Unmistakable, that was the voice of Xelloss.

Not all the astral darkness around Filia had been the power of Shabranigdu. He'd been spread out but now drew closer in form. When he projected his human form, she didn't flinch even a little. Xelloss leaned over her, his staff horizontal before her as she raised her hands. Upon claiming the weapon, the chains converged around it. With it encroached rushing water from all around them, onto Valgarv.

Xelloss now looked up, an insufferable smugness on his face.

It had been a trap from the moment Dalphin whirled into his throne room and declared that Xelloss was back home.

"Oh hear, we have him tongue-tied too."

Valgarv braced further against the chains, but water rushed onto him from all sides. Brimming with holy power, it from up his legs and wings, binding him down further. _This_ power he could sense fully. Filia didn't have just a devil and ghosts on her side, but a god itself.

"Thank you for your self-distraction," Claire whispered in his ear, without ever embodying. "The pantheon is much obliged."

"How dare you!" he screamed. "You'll pay for this!"

It came out as a whisper that drowned in the water. They didn't even really pay attention to him. Filia planted the staff in the ground and turned her back on Valgarv again.

Out of the basin she raised the angelsblood talisman. Its radiance was so great, he could tell even when hidden by her form.

"That is not yours!" he screamed. "Give it back!"

This time there wasn't even any sound, except a dry chuckle from Claire. "Don't bother them while they work now. Try bother me and see whether I care."

Claire clawed at the framework of his hollow until she found the storage subspace. He expected her to take it and hoped to catch her, but she simply held on and kept pouring into the hollow. Little by little, she destroyed it. Valgarv could not stop her — Volphied would have known how but he didn't have the holy talisman.

It was so close, if only he could cross those few wingstrokes between him and Filia. He tried again, and again, and yet his body didn't move. He couldn't tell anymore whether it was the restraints or his energy having run out.

All this time, Filia wouldn't look at him, only at whatever she did in the basin. She spoke in hushed tone with Xelloss, who sometimes looked his way but not for long.

When he did focus on him, Valgarv prepared. What for, he didn't know.

"We're ready, Aqualord. Have you found it?" he said.

"Yes, but it's rather deep between layers. Might you give summoning it to yourself a try? You're most familiar with it."

"Gladly." Xelloss let go of his projection. Filia flicked one hand backward, unrolling another glowing chain. On that cue, Xelloss hurled himself at Valgarv.

He should have been able to hit him so close, but Xelloss simply channeled away Shabranigdu's energy. Fusion cut down any attempt to destroy the conduit, and again the mass of darkness was thrown to the environment. Xelloss delved through the layers of his makeshift astral body, following the directions of Claire.

The talisman responded to him, to add insult to injury.

The second Xelloss pulled it away, Valgarv lost control of the hosts. Without talisman, the embryos were too simplistic to unleash Shabranigdu, even if Valgarv might have let him loose just to get to these pests.

It left him a mere dragon in the claws of a god, a golden dragon and a demon. An almost perfect representation of his enemies, save Chaos and its apostle.

Xelloss preened as he shifted back between the dragons.

"It's certainly nice to have a great deal of power, but it only gets one so far in face of intelligence and technique. The finer the minds round you, the less power means," he said.

At first Valgarv thought he'd been talking to him, but Claire answered, "Oh, please. I would not have agreed to this if I did not acknowledge that, but it doesn't mean _nothing_."

"I'd say it's the framework that makes the difference, right?" Xelloss tossed up the talisman. When he caught it again, a golden mist burst from his palm.

Now the set of enemies was complete : there was Lina Inverse cloaked in the power of the Lord of Nightmares. Nobody was as trapped as she was, just as she smirked like she owned the world. Either a knowing ally of Lucifer or her most foolish slave, it didn't matter. She thought herself so much, just like at their first meeting. He could hardly believe that at some point, he'd decided she wasn't a big enough deal to keep fixating on.

She floated over to him. "Hey, Valgarv. Been a while. Still blindsided by your own ego after all this time?"

Her, of all people, saying that! She had nothing but abyssal gold in her eyes, yet she dared criticize him? He should have killed her he had the chance.

"Lina Inverse. You're determined to get in my way every time, aren't you?"

"You could say I'm destined to keep you from hijacking destiny." She flicked a finger against his forehead. Though ethereal, he felt it in every fiber of his soul. "And this time, tell Volphied I won't be fooled by her little false void. I've seen the real thing now."

"You can tell her yourself once she gets to you," Valgarv spat. "We will strike you and all of Lucifer's infernal game down!"

"Really?" Lina asked. "Volphied went through a lot of trouble to keep me away from her, I doubt she's gonna face me anytime soon." Lina shrugged. "Well, if she does, no big deal. By then, I will have learned everything she can craft from you."

"I won't give you anything!"

"That's why we're creating someone who will."

**· · · · · · ·**

Val remembered everything. Every gap in his own mind had been filled with him. His will, desire and motivation.

He'd been born just now, he knew that — Claire had told him — but he remembered living much longer. A life in which he wanted things only for himself, and everything he was now had been just a shell. Something carved in a body without a soul of his own, and even now, was he that?

Claire brought up old memories from Valtera. Long ago, that one had stood in this cathedral and thought only of how he could become so great that these cathedrals would not be needed anymore. How to make the gods answer, Valtera thought, at least until he found more engaging goals.

The world had been wider then, but now it was only himself within the water, with a red crystal as his egg.

Beyond the surface of the water was his mother. Careful, she laid a hand on the surface of the water.

She joined Claire in his waking dream, leading the way through the haze. He followed her close, safe in her presence. His hand in hers, one step at a time. He left behind something that he hadn't seen before, yet the farther he came from it, the filthier it seemed. He didn't like to think about it, and she was alright with that. In its stead, she offered him to relive happier memories, but also sad ones, and others. The full spectrum, except that which lay behind.

At last she brought him before Lina Inverse. Val had feared her name, once, but she didn't look so bad now. Rather shiny, which reminded him of his mother when she transformed or teleported.

He didn't really understand what she did, but it involved a lot of weird circles — life law and others — and only at the end of it did he realize he hadn't had a body. Now the sensations of water become clear, so came the need for air.

On reflex he transformed into his human self. On emerging, it felt a little different. His reflection in the water was wrong, he looked both older and younger.

Drops ran in his eyes, he really hated that. After rubbing his eyes dry, he looked up. His mother also had wet eyes, but he would bet she hadn't just taken a dip.

"Mom, are you okay?"

He was happy to return the embrace she closed around him, burying his face in her hair. He remembered it, yet the sensation was like a first time. His mother, and she loved him ... knowledge that somehow felt new.

His most recent memories of her were a mixture of resentment, boredom and frustration with her not understanding. Everything before that was similar, but overlaying that were a thousand little moments dismissed. The sunlight when she pulled open the bedroom window and announced if he got down in time, they could make it before the festival got crowded. Chores for a penny and transformation practice in the forest, where she brought along a picnic.

Claire took those and pulled them closer, and they began to matter as they should. He wanted to thank her, but he didn't know where she was. When had she even arrived? When he had come here?

When he had ...

Mere minutes ago, he'd killed his own mother. It dimly registered she'd come back, but still he might do it again.

He pulled out of her embrace and fell off the other side of the basin.

She was at his side at once, reaching out to help him get up. He crawled back while remembering getting closer and tearing her apart, driving astral attacks through her, to urge break her ...

"I'm sorry! Sorry, sorry," he sputtered, barely seeing her through his tears. "I don't want to hurt you anymore."

"It wasn't you. Whatever he did, they were not your choices," Filia said gently. She held out one hand. "Val, please come to me. I'm not angry at you and you won't hurt me, will you?"

He shook his head, but couldn't get closer. The memories wouldn't go away, and he felt Valgarv's eyes behind his own lids, like he could take over any second. He had been his skin all along, unable to even realize that or think for himself. Valgarv's underlying thoughts had been alone, and infrequent, but still the baseline.

Valgarv ... who he had been once.

Behind him, down the slope between two trees, Valgarv was tied up with iron chains. Below him was the outer edge of a massive life law circle carved into the barren ground, and he sensed a complex holy network spanning out from it. None of that had been here before, or at least he hadn't noticed it. There had been a big building Valtera had been once, but that hadn't even been in this valley.

Valgarv didn't move, he just sat on his knees with his head slumped down. Sometimes he muttered or an arm twitched, but the wings were completely still. Even the white veins holding the hosts had dimmed.

"What's wrong with him?" he asked, though it seemed trivial.

"He's asleep," Claire said. "He's been half asleep for a while now. You are now your own person."

"I don't get it ..."

"You used to be a program running in a mortal brain, without an astral side or even will of its own," a glowing Lina said as she knelt down. "You were made that way by Volphied to be a cover for her agent, Valgarv. Now you're just you thanks to me, the genius sorceress who figured out how to read the fine print of the life laws."

"Does that mean ... am I like that weird thing Luna is now? ... tell Luna I'm sorry for that, I don't think I can myself. She's scary."

"Egad, did you get that attitude from your mom?" Lina said. "If I come out of the power struggle in the future, which I will, I'm gonna write a new cosmic law that nobody gets to blame themselves for other people's shit. Cut it out, Val."

"Hmm, he's mostly the same, but there's something different too. I don't quite know what." Ah, and there was evil wizard cone person thingy. He hovered somewhere behind Filia, harder to see in the dark.

"Let's not talk about that now," Filia said. "Val's just a child who already has enough to deal with."

"Hmm. I wonder whether your change of mind about Valgarv had anything to do with how it lets you think about Val. Not that you're wrong, but—" Xelloss started.

"Xelloss, this is really _not_ the time," she snapped.

"What's Cone Thingy going on about? Time for what?" Val asked.

"Xelloss is scared that I'm not going to ask you to help us with something and wants me to get on with it. You know how insensitive he is," Filia said.

Val nodded eagerly. Memories of his own fell into place more easily now. Valgarv hated Xelloss for a lot of silly reasons, but Val just had a long list of things that irritated him about the cone. That too had been kept low by Valgarv and Volphied — they hadn't wanted Xelloss to pay too much attention to him, and a feud would certainly have done that.

"Yeah, Evil Wizard Cone Person Thingy should know better. You always tell me my chores and I do them as well as I can," He looked down at the carved seal below his feet, he added, "But I think you're gonna have to explain this chore, mom. It looks super magical."

Except she didn't need to. The moment he thought about it, all the information came to the surface. He had an intricate map of the entirety of the machine, from the tiniest byte to the overarching concept of Megiddo itself. Coupled with that, an elaborate plan to seed this information where Zelas and later Lina could find what they needed. It began with a discarded piece of data from the Black Gods, crafted to be like a callous loss when in truth, made by Val's own hands. Dove constructs were sent to plant whispers, to observe and to collect and spread. They had made work what Zelas and Lina could not, and had installed functions in the machine they did not know about. All carefully organized so nobody would notice.

He had spent nights awake to piece together things for his pawns to find both on the island and in the shore's base. If it was really urgent and no teleportation was available, he would simply turn into an adult dragon and fly to the shore's base. Anyone unfortunate enough to see him, he had killed.

All of this he had done without a thought, the same way he didn't think about how he walked or chewed or blinked.

He gaped for air before he could get a word out.

"Mom ... I'm ... " He wasn't supposed to apologize, but everything felt so much like he'd done it. "Sorry, but I wanna say sorry to a lot of people."

"I understand," Filia said as she stroked his hair. "It feels so real, and it doesn't help enough to know it's not. You will have to bite through it, or Valgarv and Volphied will be able to manipulate you."

"Does that mean I have to do something near them?"

Filia's face already looked pained, now she looked on the edge of crying. "Yes. We ... we have to send you back into his soul, to make him do something. Do you remember what I've told you about birds and cats? What Valgarv is doing there, that's trying to save all birds by killing all cats. When the cats are gone, the sparrows will overpopulate and starve. Do you get the problem?"

"Yeah, that's easy, but we're not talking about real birds and cats though, are we?"

"We're talking about the world," Xelloss piped up. "And Valgarv decided that every animal in the world is a cat, even some birds, and that he and Volphied are the only real birds, even though they're cats."

His mother pointed at Valgarv. "He wants to do a mercy kill on a dove that isn't sick. He lies about his reasons, saying it is to save everyone, but he will kill even those who are happy and need no saving. Everyone will be reborn and lose their identities, there won't even be an afterlife."

"Like that double murder thing that Liliane tried to do to Luna, right?" Val asked.

"Yes, that's right," she said. "He wants to destroy the world and make something new as he pleases."

This too brought about a whole set of memories, such as conversations with Volphied and Dugradigdu, the fine purpose of the machine, and everything that had gone wrong since Volphied's vessel had died. It should feel like the worse, but seemed bizarre and distant compared to specific murder memories. World destruction and domination was the sort of thing from epic legends that didn't matter to real life.

Even in Valgarv's mind, the idea itself was more of an aspiration than the result was. It wasn't that he thought purifying the world was really necessary just to end the war of deities, he simply didn't consider the ramifications. It wasn't really about peace for others, just for himself. That meant compliance to his vision, and Volphied, whom he had taken a liking to. It wasn't the kind of liking that Val had for people.

He had to be stopped, because there _would_ be thinking people, but they could never be free. To Val that sounded worse than the void.

"My chore is to stop them, or not?"

"It's not a chore, Val," Filia said. "I can't pay you for it, I can only ask. It will be dangerous for you : if we want to stop him, we need you to control him."

"You're made out of part of his soul, you can return to him and replace his drive with your own," Lina said. "Be him. He's worn you like a skin for years, now you can flip the tables. Wanna give it a shot?"

Val really didn't want to go back into the monster that tried to double-murder his mother, but if it was necessary for everyone he loved to be okay, he would do it.

"What do you need me to make him do, mommy?"

"Surrender the pieces of Shabranigdu to the gods. We might have some issue convincing Rangort and the others gods you've been converted, so be careful not to provoke them. We haven't been able to warn the island what we're doing. After the hosts are contained, you must open a gateway for miss Lina and her spouses to return. She will restore things." She sounded rehearsed now, that didn't happen often. Another reason to say yes, it'd be better for his mother if Valgarv were gone.

"Okay, I know how to do that! There's a secret command prompt that can be accessed manually with a crystal thing down on the second level that—"

Lina held up her hand. "We'll cover that later. I take it that means you're working for us?"

"Of course!" He took a step closer to Lina and gave her the Sailoon salute. "Miss Inverse, your knight is at your service."

Lina placed her hands on her hips, which peeved Val a little. Wasn't she gonna return the salute?

"I'm gonna hold you to that, kid," she said with a smirk, or a smile — you often couldn't tell with her. She knelt down to be at eye level with him. "Not as my knight cause I don't have my grand castle yet, but as my ally."

Oh, that's was better!

"I bet when we're done, I can build you a castle. I know how to build lots of things," he said. "I'm going to build a castle for my family too, cause I don't think I'm a little dragon without Volphied magic stuff."

"Nah, I can design my own castle," Lina said with smugness that Val knew was unwarranted so hard.

"No, you can't. Your house sculpting plans suck," Val said. "Mom says your designs are hell's bane of architecture and she praises chaos or whatever other deity for keeping you out of the home market."

Lina cast a glare at Val's mother, who just give a satisfied smile.

"You used to be less offensively blunt," Xelloss said. "I wonder what that means."

"Valgarv doesn't want me to be provoking anyone who could figure out stuff. So I had to be boring sometimes," Val said. "It's always the whole, _there's nothing to say, there's nothing to say_ command override. I hate it. Well, I hate it now. I didn't think about it before."

Val turned to face Valgarv for the first time. Looking on someone who he remembered being was both jarring and surreal. How he thought and felt now, all that he remembered thinking ridiculous and trivial.

That made it a little easier, because Val didn't really know himself with that face. It looked harsh only because he knew what lay behind those closed eyes, but it wasn't his either way.

"There's a few things we have to do when we get to the island," he said. "Volphied's supposed to get in and possess the gods, she's gonna try when I open the gates for you, Lina."

"We better plan ahead then," Lina said. "Tell me everything that I don't know about Elmegiddo."

"Okay but where's ... Claire, are you around here? Come out, we have a job together," he said, trying to sound cool and optimistic like one of those heroes.

"I wouldn't call it a game, and I'm afraid you won't find me as fun as before, Val," said Claire, her voice drifting in from somewhere.

"Actually, you could be pretty boring before and I think Valgarv just made me be curious," Val said. "But I think I do really like you anyway. You were nice and I did like playing with you and finding old memories and things like that. If that was fun enough for you too, it's okay, right?"

A thick silence fell and the atmosphere shifted, as if the entire environment sighed.

"Claire?"

"She's not miss Claire anymore," Xelloss said. "The Aqualord has absolved herself of such base personalities as we are in favor of being useful. Fun isn't in the plan, it seems."

"Oh ... "

The next wave of memories boiled up. Unlike those before, these were harder to form an opinion on.

In Zoana, Claire had walked into his dreams — Valgarv's dreams — and gone unnoticed. Luna had blended because Valgarv already felt anger so often, Luna's one emotion didn't cause significant changes in the dreamscape. Claire herself simply felt too little.

He'd ruined her. Right when Claire had felt shame and then decided to become a leader and not a religion, Valgarv had ruined the seed. If Val had been there, he would have told her that yeah, she did mess up a lot of things, but she could make it better now and he'd help her figure it out. He couldn't think that though, because Valgarv wasn't like that.

Claire had never been all that vivid, but the one who stood before him lacked even the tiniest spark. Maybe she had put that personality in a box, the way Valgarv had put Val in storage. It was more sad than death : she was gone altogether, no afterlife at all.

"Can you wear Claire again?" Val asked, though he feared the answer.

"I've kept the structure and potential, but it is not a personality suit like you were," she said.

"Well, what do you want to be?"

Another silence.

Xelloss leaned over and said, "I think she's still figuring that out."

"I'm not! I simply do not know how to explain it to a child."

Val crossed his arms, peeved. "You didn't say that when it was about me getting memories of my old self, and I have lots of stuff in my head that I'm too child for. I ... huh, I also know a lot of stuff Volphied said ... she's doing machine things again."

"I'm a printer trying to run Rinux. I threw out some programs I don't need, but I have the data burned and in storage."

"Huh?" was as much as Filia and Xelloss could respond, but Lina nodded.

"Oh ... did it hurt, cutting away stuff?" He tried not looking sad and smiled at her. "I hope it didn't."

She chuckled and said, "It hurt far more to be, ah well, whole as folk than it is to be whole as god."

That was good enough for Val. Obviously, Xelloss was wrong about her not doing fun anymore and if she felt fine, he could be happy for her.

Now he just had to figure out how to get Valgarv gone and then everything could get back to normal. His mother could be happy again and Claire could get herself the correct hardware or software or whatever she wanted. To start with that, they needed Lina and her special magic back.

Val told them everything he knew about Elmegiddo. Only Lina understood all the terms because she had learned them in the Black World. Actually, as Val hated to admit, she understood them _better_. Now he thought about it, that was true for Valgarv too. Val had the memories, but he didn't really know what to do once conditions were changed or what exactly some things did.

Claire had a lot to say about controlling Valgarv from the inside and he asked as much as he could, but he wasn't sure he could pull it off. He didn't really get what some things were ... he knew how to fly, he knew why he could fly, he didn't know how to build planes or heal broken wings. So he asked more, but didn't say he doubted. He didn't want to let them down after they went through all this trouble.

Especially not his mother. Unless he had to draw something for Lina, he sat in her lap. Huddled so close, he could sense her tension and noticed she made herself keep smiling. It wasn't the first time she looked like that, but it was the first time he knew what lay behind it.

Just like with the plans for the machine, knowing what wasn't enough to understand it all. If he did understand, he should've been able to say something to make her feel better. He felt young, but he had so much time in his head, he felt old too. Then again, maybe being old didn't mean smart. Xelloss was old and he only had some kinds of smart and lacked lots of others.

All those ghosts between the trees were much older. He kinda wanted to talk with them, but none of them approached his little group. They just stayed near the burning trees, which cast odd pillars into the sky. It fed the barrier overhead, where Claire floated as a full dragon — two places at once.

The more he was here and the more memories fell in place, the smaller he felt. Knowledge without understanding, but understanding that he didn't know. The boy he'd been before wouldn't ever have even thought about any of this. What did that make him?

He took care not to look afraid and was pretty sure he pulled it off, but Xelloss and Claire could tell anyway. Xelloss in particular started to look more worried. By the time he and Filia had to cast a protective layer around the angelsblood talisman, Xelloss had both eyes open. It unnerved Val, because it brought up memories of how Xelloss had treated Val's mother in Kataart. There was also a time Xelloss had tried torturing Valgarv to death, but Val couldn't hate him for that. It was that he'd done similar to Val's mother.

After Lina gave Val the talismans, Val faced Xelloss and said, "Hey, evil cone thingy. I'm gonna go save the world now and mom needs to feel okay, so you have to be nice to her."

"I'm trying," he said with a tense little shrug. Val would bet that doing this annoyed him.

"Well try hard cause maybe we need fusion to keep the night dragon lady out," Val said. Then he turned back to his mother.

"I'll see you soon, mom," he said, laying his arms around her neck again. "You'll be proud, I'm not going to be like Valgarv."

She just held him tighter, and Val himself found it hard to let go.

Xelloss tugged at her hair. "Miss Filia, we really shouldn't draw this out. They'll wonder where he is in the north."

She sniffed. "I know, I know."

Val didn't think she'd let go first, so he did.

Hesitant, she stood up and took the two talismans from the basin.

"So how do I get back in?" he asked.

The ghosts of the ancient dragons closed around Valgarv and the nearby trees burst completely into blue flames. Lina stepped in front of them, holding her hand out to Val. He looked at his mother one last time before Lina's hand.

**· · · · · · ·**

Valgarv didn't sleep often these days, but sometimes had to. Not that he cared for the health of the hosts, it just wouldn't do for him to lose control due to something as trivial as neurological stress in underdeveloped brains. The embryos had copious potential, but even with his power and Volphied's structure, they were mere human matter.

The stone was a beacon akin to what Luna had used to serve as a teleportation beacon. A simple thing embedded with subtle holy structure, but this variety had a layer of fusion that prevented radiation. If he hadn't known it, he wouldn't have noticed.

How did he know anyway?

Xelloss appeared, but remained fully on the astral plane. He went about the room and destroyed the magical potential of two more rocks. Only before Valgarv did he project.

Holding out his hand, he said, "I'll take that."

Valgarv handed him the stone. Xelloss purged it, then tossed the rock over his shoulder.

"So, lord , ahem, _Dark Star_ , when will you have fed enough for us to invade Har Megiddo?"

"Right now. Let's do it right now."

He was aware of all the reasons he shouldn't do that, but they sizzled out again.

**· · · · · · ·**

"Oh, I'm enjoying the unique situation of two persons producing one set of emotions to eat," Xelloss said lightly, but he had both eyes open.

"There is only me!" Valgarv said, even though he couldn't remember what he responded to.

"I just spent three hours making sure that's not true anymore," Xelloss said. "Admit it, miss Filia strung you along into _her_ preferred world view. Not even mine, or Lina's. It's her who raised Val, and now all of that thrives in you. It's wonderfully ironic."

"I'll eradicate him! He was never for her!" Valgarv said.

"Why, because she's defending herself and the world against you? There you go again with the guilt by association thing," Xelloss said, dripping with disgust. "Really, festering grudges is pointless to begin with, but _yours do not even make sense_."

"Did you know this all was miss Filia's idea? That little dragon, how dangerous she turned out to be when broken into such small pieces that her values don't mean much to her anymore. I wouldn't say you gave life to her new self, but you certainly amplified her more, ahem, entertaining and useful qualities."

He roared out, but he couldn't transform. He slammed his fists into the walls, but couldn't charge it with energy. All he achieved was a tremors in the ice palace and a few icicles falling down.

"Hilarious, no? You have so much power, but you're not smart enough. Meanwhile, I'm relatively weak but I'm safe because I've been on top of the game."

Xelloss _fed_ on his frustration, he could sense it ... but not even say anything else.

The noise had attracted a swarm of devils, but Valgarv ignored them until Dalphin herself stepped in.

"Where have you been, lord Dark Star?" Deep Sea Dalphin asked. "There were reports of your absence."

He did not want to, but something made him say it anyway, "I experimented with the dragon's ability to teleport. It works, so I want to go ahead with Elmegiddo's invasion."

"Are you certain? Did you not say you need to find a way to awaken at least one of our king's pieces?"

"Shut up!" Valgarv closed the distance between them. "I did just that by figuring out this world's flow. Don't you know how teleportation works? Pffft. Go inform the armies, they can have the rest of the captives and power up. We're going south."

He wasn't supposed to say this, yet at the same time, doing so satisfied him. He needed to do it.

**· · · · · · ·**

The next time he was aware, Dalphin and Dynast were jabbering about what strategy to use to avoid the gods, with Xelloss giving a few sharp hints ... that Valgarv now knew were a trap. They'd mentioned something about Orun working as Valwin's eyes, so it wouldn't just be Rangort and Ragradia. He tried to say that, it didn't matter anymore if his ruse broke, it ... just didn't happen. He knew he had to do something, he wanted to, but the inertia to move never came.

It had to be Val, but he couldn't detect him in any way.

Having another person in one's mind shouldn't be like this! When Luna and Claire had wandered into his dreams, they had been separate. How was he to face off against someone when he didn't know where to aim?

Claire had shown him right to his face with her damn expanding ball. The network of a soul. Ragradia had figured out how to control it, and every bit of that knowledge she had put to work here. Valgarv could not even tell whether Val was inside his soul, or he within Val.

The countervirus had laid claim to his link with the two hosts of Shabranigdu, maybe if he worked from that angle ...

He pulled the demonsblood talisman out. Last he remembered, Filia and Xelloss had stolen it— no, last he remembered Val had taken it back into him. Here he was, anchored in this thing where Valgarv couldn't get to him, but Val had every option to influence in return.

He tried closing his hand around it, destroy it, but nothing happened. His limbs had weight and feelings, yet the commands caused no response.

Shabranigdu agreed on something now : they had to destroy their common enemy. He wasn't as compliant as Dark Star, but it would do.

**· · · · · · ·**

Valgarv breathed on reflex, only to choke on the water. It got him strange looks from the surrounding devils, Dalphin most of all.

Where ... right, the sea. The devils and he himself were in the middle of digging into the earth to slip below the barrier. Now, what did he have to work with to undo all this nonsense Filia had started?

Grand displays of world salvation were for later, he wanted vengeance now.

Xelloss always stayed near, presumably feeding the fusion magic on the talismans. At first it confused him where he even got a fresh line from Filia, but then remembered her regeneration. That would be an immortality pledge, then.

He could think about killing Xelloss, but nothing happened. Every mundane move he wanted, he could do, but not that. He didn't have access to soul sight either, and couldn't detect the Val program in any way. It. He ... no, it.

Treating the program like a person was a nuisance. He shouldn't have to fight mental battles to control his own property. Be as that may, he didn't have the volition to attack Xelloss directly, but there were more ways than outright violence to get to someone.

A spiritual attack differed from the standard astral attack in that one laced their power through words and ideas. Xelloss was affected by the Life Is Wonderful variety sure enough, but it got little more than a migraine. For Xelloss, who so liked things to be fun and interesting, you needed something boring and desperate to really get to him screaming. Seven years ago, Valgarv variety of This Life Is Meaningless Just Give Up had sent Xelloss screaming within first touch.

Valgarv had the backing of a Phied and an Igdu back then, but he didn't need them to do it. He just needed Val to not care for whether Xelloss was healthy, so it wouldn't get in the way. Outright trying to kill Xelloss would no doubt get Val's full counteract, but mere torture? Volphied hadn't created the child to be so perfect he would object just because Filia did. Oh no, Val just needed to think of someone as a villain to be alright with it.

 _Why would Xelloss stop?_ Well, if he had reasons. When those reasons ran out, he'd be back to how he was before. He made a point of remembering the torture and what emotions he'd gotten from Xelloss. Really, Val

He didn't quite sense Val relent, but it became easier to hear Shabranigdu.

The lowlife demon king actually thought he had an in with Valgarv when he suggested they attack Xelloss. Ha! He'd take the help and cut him down once he ran out of use, Igdus deserves no less.

Valgarv needed an army as cannon fodder, so he didn't strike immediately. It would waste time if he had to deal with questions about why he suddenly attacked Xelloss, and if Val didn't work out how to deal with that well, things would become messy.

So, he waited until they emerged on the other side of the tunnel. When the pressure of Gaia diminished, the devil armies fanned out over the seabed : a network planned to give advance warning if a god approached and to explore the area.

"Dynast, it occurred to me that with Ragradia back alive, they'll have more Zenaffa. Go deal with that in case any elves come swimming out way," he said.

Dynast mumbled something through the water, and Dalphin his her eyes behind her hands in shame.

"Dear Grand Monarch, adapt your voice to aquatic environment," Dalphin said. "This is not my island."

"Phhjhdfhdf—I knew that! It's just all this magic. Anyway, lord Shabranigdu, as you wish!"

He gathered his higher devils and forgot to command Grau until Dalphin pushed him after.

"Now that he's out of the way, what are the odds you can make a second tunnel to approach the machine from below?" Valgarv asked. They were slim odds because she'd never gone deep enough to find out what exactly lay at the foundation of the island, but that didn't need to be shared.

"Hmm, we have gone rather far without interference. I honestly would have expected that new Aqualord to have come rushing in from the island. If it remains like that, perhaps we will have the time for that, but I would not count on it."

"I will bet you that they left out the god to go deal with the war. Go ahead and start, I will destroy the tunnel so that if the Aqualord comes, she can't get in quickly."

Dalphin narrowed her eyes. "Yes, I suppose we might take that risk, but what if you are wrong? If the god is here after all, we will have no way out."

"She's not here, I would have noticed any whole gods through my host's dragon senses. Go and do it," he said. "I will teleport over once you give a clear signal."

"As you wish." She shifted into her beastial form and shot off on the currents.

At this point, Valgarv took Shabranigdu's energy and fused it with some of the holiness he still had from Luna. The resulting shield was flimsy and breakable, but it should do enough to prevent any surrounding devils from seeing. The dark of the sea did the rest.

He couldn't cut the outward flow of that immortality pledge, though. Almost, Xelloss got away. Almost wasn't enough when Shabranigdu freely offered up enough energy to trap Xelloss in a barrier. The world around them turned into a black plane, a subdimension closer to the astral plane. To Xelloss, this act put raw astral pressure on him, but Valgarv kept impact back for now. He wanted him to be able to answer first.

"Xelloss, here's a question for you : first and second time you heard the name Elmegiddo?"

The first would be in the tunnels below Kataart, and Claire would independently have started on it sooner or later. He'd whispered it to her back when he'd stolen the demonsblood talisman at the moment of her creation. Volphied should have been there and further possess her, but even without that, he'd ... well, he hadn't been thinking at all, just running on auto pilot. Not that it made a huge difference.

Given Xelloss's confusion and weariness in response, Claire had indeed brought it up.

"What are you getting at?"

"Just how easy it is to plant ideas in astral beings without them realizing it."

"Val, make him stop this," Xelloss sneered. Already both eyes open.

"Val is still a creation of Volphied at the end of the day," Valgarv said. "You really thought you could control me through it? Then again, what would _you_ even know? You can't even see how you are controlled."

"The only one controlling me is my liege, the Beast Monarch."

Valgarv scoffed. Xelloss was so complacent about that fact, it was disgusting. Shabranigdu's link to his other pieces was vague, but Xelloss didn't know _how_ vague. All Shabranigdu remembered what that the third host, Levnas, had seen : Lina and Leyunso speaking about risks and reformation, and later Lina had sought out Xelloss. Whether Lina had done anything was pure speculation, but that was enough.

"Really? Maybe Lina changed you without you even noticing. Just like my useful item, Val, thought it was real before because it could not see me, just like you would not be able to notice anything wrong with your own behavior and thoughts."

There it was. A slight tremble in the shoulders. A clenched jaw. He had control on his emotions yet, but with a projection this human he couldn't perfect stoicism. So pathetic.

"Don't you think it's strange? Maybe you didn't notice, but you admire Lina now. When did she graduate merely from being that human who was unusual and useful? I remember what you said about her in the first four years you came by ... I could eat emotions all the time, I know how you felt about her. Do you?"

By now he had surrounded Xelloss with energy, exploiting the weakened defenses. He locked him in place with wire; it should have been chains like they had used on him, but he didn't know how to make those. On the lowest astral layer, there was no difference between words and blows. Needles tore into Xelloss's core, slowly because Valgarv had a point to make. Xelloss buckled forward, fingers digging into his core. He almost screamed, but bit it back.

He didn't fight back, which was less giving up and more preserving energy when he knew his enemy was stronger. That wasn't good enough. Valgarv wanted him to actually give up.

"What if she laced something in those words, the way astral attacks work, but it wasn't an attack, just the intent to change your mind. How much could she do when she speaks with the voice of Chaos? Wouldn't it be convenient for her if you and Zelas venerated her?"

"I would have noticed," he said, strained. So much doubt now.

"Val never noticed me even when I made him do things that made no sense. Remember when Val walked in while you and Filia worked in Kataart? He bled, but he didn't feel guilty, did he? He couldn't, because it wasn't strange to him that he'd keep a secret. If Lina is half as good as Volphied, you would never think about anything strange you did. Do you itch to defend her if someone disrespects her?"

Now he was screaming full out and Valgarv didn't even need to keep talking. He had an in now, but the sound was rather annoying. He wasn't done talking yet.

Well, why not see whether a devil could be tongue-tied too?

He turned his hand into a claw and closed it around Xelloss's lower face. Xelloss always projected blood from the head, which came built in because he inspired so many to punch him in the face. Val had thought it was funny, and for once, Valgarv agreed so much. The more he tightened his claws, the more red clouded out. Without the sensation of water, it looked rather amusing. Would it stay once out of this space? Mortals made to bleed on this plane didn't always take it to the full physical world, after all.

Cutting open an astral being was like cutting butter when you added in an effective spiritual attack. He took his time tearing down the complex system that Xelloss had to create sound. Less blood here, but it shut him up either way. Left was the undiluted miasma of a devil close to panic and despair. He couldn't just let that go, could he?

"Lord Garv told me that it wasn't the soul itself that made him desire existence. It was being reborn with a survival instinct of humans and without active powers or memories of his former life ... just being a human was that forced him to think differently. Lina Inverse isn't going to kill all astral beings or just give them souls. She's planning to do a different version of what I and Volphied are going to do with the machine : we change everyone to work better. Ours would unite all souls in rebirth, she just plans to change what's inconvenient for her. A soul alone mere adds options for change, but a soul inscribed with the command of the Lord of Nightmares determines what changes. Face it, Xelloss. The world has always been a trap."

Without screaming or moving much, the results were less interesting. Xelloss still wasn't on the brink yet, even if he was a mess in both senses. Hmm ... someone had done something with her energy core recently, it wasn't quite stable.

Was that a life law engraved on him? It wasn't anywhere on the higher planes, he didn't know how to move to touch it, let alone use it. Just knew it was there, if he strained his focus. Should he to use it—

He snapped back to himself when a sharp pain bore into his arm. Xelloss was half loose and had an iron grip on his arm, slowly pushing him away from his neck.

Rather than push back, Valgarv let go.

**· · · · · · ·**

Val couldn't keep track of all these connections. Valgarv being a full fledged person, there was no autopilot to switch to. Constant attention was required to keep him from being awake, and to control the body, and to keep Shabranigdu at bay.

Now Xelloss was a torn up mess in more ways than one. A huge gap torn from his head down his torso, bleeding at the top and showing green spots further down; two things that meant the same.

Val didn't know how to heal him, and didn't feel so bad for Xelloss either. It would disappoint mother, though, and he hoped he could still fuse magic.

Xelloss shot a few meters away the second he was free, but as he couldn't withdraw to the astral plane, that wasn't far. Valgarv had messed that up again, and Val didn't know how to fix it, or whether he should try.

"Sorry," Val said in Valgarv's voice. He didn't blame Xelloss when that didn't sound sincere enough to relax. The beast priest eyed him more like a cornered wolf than the human he usually resembled.

"I can make him want to go to the island, but every new idea he gets, I have to figure out how to deal with. I'm sorry ... I don't think it's safe if you stay here for much longer. On the good side, I think I dissolved his memory of summoning Volphied while he was busy with you."

That probably didn't sound so optimistic to someone with part of their body dissolved.

"Xelloss, please blink if you understand me."

Xelloss blinked, then pointed around.

Right, Val should take them out of this space. Before he did so, he formed a sphere of holy magic and held it out to Xelloss. "Here, ... it should be safe to teleport at least a bit. Go to mom, okay?"

Without hesitating, Xelloss grabbed it and teleported away.

**· · · · · · ·**

Dammit, he'd gotten away. Not that that would stop him. He just had to go ... do ... summon Lina Inverse. That was it.

**· · · · · · ·**


	40. Zelas's Loss

**· · · · · · ·**

Zelas had nothing to do, no distraction from her foundation of being ( _hey, end the world_ , that little instinct said), and now she wished she had never started this.

The machine's alterations by Dalphin's cult were all disposed of, ready to be rebuilt according to the old plan. As far as they could, at least, since the old plan would have seen Lina back by this point and add the finishing touches with information gained from the Black World.

That left everything to crude improvisation. Nobody here really understood programs and computers. Even Zelas's use of them was as arbitrary as a beginner's and hindered by her devil nature. It counted as using tools too much, it was like denying her own capacity. Some of these things she could do just with magic ...

More than ever, she needed to be able to do this, since something had happened to the one god who was in on the _real_ plan.

She just had nothing at hand. That would have been the case before this fiasco too, but it stood out more now.

Zelas had gotten a hold of some of the remaining cult members of Dalphin and tortured them for a few hours. Two of them even talked, telling her everything they knew about Dalphin's plans. Too bad for them she was only here for dinner. No way the grains would know about any grander plan, like Dalphin setting Xelloss up. Did that even fit what she'd seen? Did it matter? She dwindled them down one by one anyway.

Luna usually cleaned up the blood, complaining without bite about the mess. This hour she didn't, she had questioning of her own to do.

There wasn't anywhere to go. Her tribe was attended to by her lieutenants. Valwin and Rangort attempted to brew an angelsblood talisman with Orun's help, only requiring Luna to redirect the flow and no input from Zelas — they would use Luna but she was too messed up, too busy with fusion, too filthy. It probably wouldn't work, but let them try. Luna would be around.

So Zelas just walked across the island, driving away time and trying not to think. She destroyed what annoyed her, tore down memories of Dalphin or lingered in corners as a wolf.

She wanted a diversion better than anyone could offer here. It led her to the futile task of trying to find evidence for what changed Xelloss — as if an astral change could leave physical traces.

According to a squirming dragon, Filia's room was behind these walls. Zelas broke the coral and rock down with burning ease.

The quarters mixed the abominal mixture of frills and weaponry with remnants of Dalphin's tacky marine theme. Sappy little paintings on the walls, pottery things all around. Savaged straw mats all over the place, a nice reminder she was grasping at a straw.

One room served as fridge for Sailoonian ice cream, now full of melted goo and residue magic. Zelas tried to guess when it had started melting as to have some clue when Ragradia had really gone unhinged, but the frost magic was newly developed. In a few hours she might be able to guess at what speed it waned.

Idly, she made figures with the tip of her boot.

She needed answers. The treachery was out there on its own, but that within hours of Filia's death and Xelloss's departure, the Aqualord had stopped functioning. She took no other form than Lyos, would reply to questions but not voice opinions and barely feel anything. At first Zelas had speculated she had shut down to mourn or something similar, but the Aqualord just plain did not take _any_ initiative. Then just to make matters worse, the god had just plain evaporated once the pillar activated. The other gods blinded as they were, they could not even tell whether the Aqualord had died or gone off somewhere, either in this world or another.

Maybe all of this had been part of Xelloss's plan. Maybe he had come back wrong from his dream attempt, had drawn Filia along, had tampered with the rebirth of the Aqualord, had ... had ... had ... but why?

He had been too theatrical, she should have realized something was wrong. Now there was no ready chance to learn anymore, except from this damn sugary mess.

Waiting a few hours just for measly information did not appeal as much as indulging her barely contained rage.

A few pieces of coral burned up when Luna stepped in. Zelas didn't turn, only mildly annoyed by the inevitable comment, thanks to Luna's constant purification.

Luna leaned over the melted mess with fake interest. "Of course, why didn't we think of this before. Surely the cause of the Aqualord's boo boo is in the fridge, the final destination of many women."

"Must you make such tasteless comments?"

"Yeah, cause having to smell this rot is bad enough," Luna said, waving at the melting ice cream. "On the other hand, I'm sure there's other tasty things here."

Luna pulled open a cabinet, where she found a stack of chocolate ice cream cones. She claimed the whole pack and dropped in the nearest comfortable chair to munch them.

With Luna already easing away her irritation, Zelas found it easier to focus again.

"Did you get anything out of the Sage?" Zelas asked evenly.

Luna zipped her hand before her mouth. "Ooh, smooth chance of topic there. Nah, she didn't talk. Well, nothing relevant anyway."

Her holy energy went into overdrive in cutting negativity, so Zelas asked, "Not relevant in _what_ manner?"

"Eh, she's trying to tell me Filia's alive. Says we'll have evidence if only we lower the shield for a bit longer."

What was the Sage after? Trying to convince Luna Filia wasn't dead seemed as pointless as suggesting they try blending gods without glue. She had to have some sort of plan, but what?

One of the things she'd said had been "You should not try to reassign Ragradia's power to Rangort and it's a bad idea to try to rearrange the shield to do that. Ragradia is whole. It's an excellent idea to tell others I said this." They'd gone ahead with the whole bizarre experiment, right up until Luna somehow got contacted by Filia's ghost, claiming it'd kill someone. Just a moment, Luna had doubted Zelas. They'd reestablished the shield rather quickly though, when Luna asked Zelas whether the Sage had talked to her. Yes. She could answer that much.

Too late. Now they lacked the only functional god. Maybe Luna would be next. One more tool taken away.

"Do not visit her again," Zelas said. "That is an order."

Luna shrugged and said nothing. She just worked the rezast spell harder, cutting into Zelas's mind in a form of pain she had no words for.

A few thousand years ago, she had taken over a country while posing as various humans, her assassin role had ended up up for torturous execution. She'd feigned a perfect human body for the event and gotten a creative torturer with a spell to pull veins from the body. Physically that was unpleasant, the spirit equivalent incited hatred every second, but it was better than losing her focus to rage.

Luna seemed content throughout the process, despite handling what was poison to her. Zelas could just guess what was going on in her pretty little head. Some smug satisfaction in that she was human _enough_ , most likely. How she wanted to be able to read minds, whether for curiosity at Luna's bizarre mind or need to see where Xelloss had gone off the trail.

"Your ice cream fueled philosophical musings will absolutely go into my memoirs," Luna said while chewing. "You get that, right?"

Zelas growled low, but Luna didn't take the hint. "Well, if you're being deep, I hope it's about the women in fridges thing. It's probably just mothers in this world. Mad or missing. I'm gonna bet Elena didn't survive the attack on Sailoon."

"I am not a mother."

"Don't you devils call _Her_ the Mother?"

It was symbolic. It was ... who cared? Zelas didn't.

"If She is the kind of being that dictates mothers must die or fail, then damn Her. Damn Lucifer," Zelas hissed.

Luna tensed up, but fear didn't take over.

"Do you believe your own jest, lady corpse? Perhaps my death was spelled out before me the whole time." Zelas turned away from the room. "We may never know what the Lord of Nightmares truly desire."

When she walked away, Luna followed. "That matters way too much to you."

"What I do not know or understand can ruin me. Get this feeling off of me already," Zelas snarled. "I need to be able to think as myself."

Luna shrugged and worked her holy power deeper. The blinding wrath sizzled away, leaving Zelas cold and wrong, but rational.

Being rational did nothing about how reasonable it felt for the world to be void again.

**· · · · · · ·**

Getting Luke into this world was probably impossible anyway.

As an angel, Milina could travel the planes at will, perhaps with even more ease than astral beings. The obvious answer was to turn Luke into a chimera too, but nobody knew how. Luna, despite being a chimera of astral and human, didn't have the capacity to withdraw to the astral plane like Valgarv had been able to. There had to be something more to being an angel and a demon than just being a chimera. Garv had been the only one to know how to do it right and he had the nerve to be annihilated. It was almost as rude as Filia being dead.

Luna agreed on that one, on some level. Luna had caught Milina when she was about tl leave and pulled her into the room she'd been cleaning — freshly burned by Zelas — to ask about Filia's soul.

"I wouldn't know. The entry registers are down because we are short on staff. Thanks for annihilating so many angels. Most of the remainder is now making sure no devils slip into our barrier across Megiddo's flow."

"Oh come on, how hard would it be to notice her? I doubt she'd pass through silently, and hardly anyone's dying here—"

"Animals and spirits have souls too, and this sea is full of life. Your fusion shield does nothing against the flow of Megiddo and _we are busy_. Take a hint."

Luna hesitated, then said, "Look, I'm sorry—"

"Spare us the fake apologies, I can tell you don't mean it."

"Fine, be that way. Anyway, how do I get in touch with Filia?"

"Why?"

"Oh, nothing big. I just have to chew her out over her fatal life choices, like dating Xelloss."

Zelas cringed despite herself. It had seemed so _harmless_. She'd seen herself thousands of years ago, in her first awkward attempts to play with mortal lives and minds. She had gone for kings and deacons to sow discord in societies, her pawns. While she had been a better actor and learned quicker than Xelloss, it hadn't been surprising he would get a taste for the same. Power play worked at its finest if one's partner believed the relationship fair and equal, and it would be so _convenient_ to string along Filia, given her capacities.

Fix it, she'd told him. He obeyed in the most amusing manner ... had she pushed him too far, or had he simply gotten bored trying to uplive to her?

Fix it. Fix it. Fix it. It was so vague, where had the snare been? Or was it a loophole?

**· · · · · · ·**

She didn't count the time, so when the expected happened, it was a surprise that to learn how long it had taken. Less time felt like it had passed, between the betrayal and the earth spirits announcing that the devil army was headed this way, spearheaded by Shabranigdu.

Zelas had no talismans, no hosts of Shabranigdu on earth, no Lina Inverse. Just three broken gods and two shields. If they enemy was coming, they probably had a plan to deal with those. Who knew what else Volphied might have taught Valgarv?

"My liege, what are your orders?" one of her lieutenants had asked when delivering the news. She had no orders yet. Just sent him off, while she went to the northern side of the island and waited on a half finished balcony. For good measure, she had an ice bucket with wine bottles and glasses to go.

If the bottles weren't done by the time her enemy got through the barrier, she would fight. If they were finished, she would go in and open the gate into the nothing.

Luna joined her there not much later, radiating with excitement — the first time she'd felt that way since the betrayal.

She sat on the edge of the railing. "Hey, guess what? According to the nereids, Xelloss is with them. I'm going to kill him. Is your pseudo pack non-instinct gonna get in the way?"

How was she supposed to know that? The past days had made it evident something had gone wrong, and she was almost positive Xelloss had lied to her face at least once. Despite not having been created that way. That meant she didn't know something about herself well enough.

"I take it you want to kill him yourself?" Luna asked.

Zelas had every mental resource telling her to reply yes, like the proud devil she was, but ...

... she didn't want to kill him. He had to die, that was a practical fact, but he was also hers, her finest creation, she didn't want to finish it like this ...

This all was do disgustingly sentimental. Her form flickered.

"Cause if you don't, I'd love to do it. You can focus on defending the machine. Maybe they're even counting on him mattering to you ... I bet he's gonna talk. Does he understand what he did, when you created him?"

Luna asked an awful lot of questions lately. Zelas considered to just stop projecting and leave Luna behind ...

"Did you ever tell him directly, _never betray me_?"

No, she _shouldn't_ have needed to. Xelloss was supposed to be like her.

Luna swung her legs over the railing and leaned closer, trying to get a look at Zelas's downward face.

"Come on, no climatic declarations? Devils are usually fond of that, and you are a devil like no other. I bet your story for what changed you has some juicy material."

Ah, Luna was baiting her for weakness, or maybe something to laugh at. Humor being the only thing she could still feel, and no healthy fear, that probably seemed like a fine idea.

Of course she wasn't going to tell this revolting human about that. She was better than that. If she went down before Shabranigdu, the last that would be her own would be her choices and her history. Luna wasn't worth that privilege, it'd have to be pried from her astral fingers.

"It started with imagination. Just like everyone else, we devils are driven to reach a goal. Mortals strive to live happily and can get that even with reaching smaller goals. Get up, work, feed, reproduce, love. Envy them? No. But it did not make sense. We also gain contentment from smaller goals reached. I imagined what I would be like if my fundamental desire changed. As devil we must slip into roles to define our identity. I did not give any further thought to choosing wolves — _living creatures_ — as my theme.

I did not choose to change, it merely happened. Just like everyone in the world. But everything I did after someone pushed me over the edge, that has been my choice. For a thousand years, potential and questions lingered in my mind. The way I created Xelloss was my first choice acting on it. My first true experiment."

Damn it all. Sticking to principles without an emotional boost like anger was a little not very easy.

Luna clapped once. "Hmm, that's more a soliloquys than the declaration of resolve you should've gone for, but it's nice. Makes it easier to appreciate the pile of shit you are."

How much of not feeling insulted was general world ending apathy, or Luna putting extra effort in dispersing negative emotions?

It didn't really matter if this was all just Lucifer messing around for her own laughter, or whatever else it was.

"Lemme know once you figure out how you want the experiment to end." Luna took one of the wine bottles and drank without a glass.

How easy would it be to just stop moving. Cast a spell, stop being. It went against every fiber of her being that said she had to take the world along, but not as loudly as before. Maybe Shabranigdu would defeat Valgarv's control and just end the world, like it was supposed to be. If only she could believe that.

She stayed still and waited. The horizon started writhing with darkness before Luna even finished half the bottle. As her eyes turned eagle, she sought out their forms.

It was just an upper crust, really. Mere scouts, but they didn't move like scouts. The real army was already here, fighting lack of sight and wayward flow below the surface of the sea.

Luna tapped her shoulder. "I can see better below there."

Zelas stood up and poured out what was left in her wine glass.

"I have no time for distractions. You may kill him for me, miss Luna," Zelas said. Almost successfully an afterthought.

Luna smirked as her astral corpse folded open, shot veins and razors into the world, sick holiness.

"I'll tell you all about it later," Luna said as she took to the air. "Try to survive."

**· · · · · · ·**

With Luna at a distance, her ability to purge negativity was less strong. Zelas upheld a makeshift contact with her, infection more than pledge, but it wasn't enough. By the time she appeared in the central hall to confer on strategy, she was back to a barely restrained rage.

Milgazia moved to the other side of the hall as soon as he saw her. Not that it'd help much, but if she didn't have to see him, it was better.

Valwin had made no progress regaining astral sight and still relied on Orun. Rangort was hardly better.

A swarm of nature spirits had gathered, reporting to the dragons. Apparently the enemy was digging below the fusion magic shield at a point where Rangort's shield didn't mesh well with the earth.

The fusion magic shield itself ended where Gaia's range began, because while magic could be cut, souls could not be severed this way. Aggravating Gaia was a bad idea, but loophole exploit? Easily done. They used demons : devils who had possessed objects and beasts, as well as other cursed entities. Shabranigdu as Valgarv also had been involved.

Xelloss must have told them this was an option, because it wasn't common knowledge among the devil clan that Gaia's astral borders weren't an inhabited field so much as linear. It could be tricked for a while and there were faded zones. Of course Zelas had told Xelloss this, he might need to bypass a barrier cast by someone who didn't get the concept of holy ground being needed to be surrounded.

Any time now, someone would ask her to adjust the fusion shield for this. She wasn't in the mood to explain that she'd send Luna away. She wasn't in the mood for anything, except maybe tearing open the world. Just open a hole without connecting to anything, let it break. They wouldn't know what she did before it was too late. Lucifer would get what She wanted, but wasn't that better than what Volphied wanted?

Best would be if nobody get anything they wanted, except herself, even if it was just that base desire for the world to end.

_SPLAT._

The sound thundered through the air. A few yelped, many feared and quite a few whats joined in.

Zelas shifted to the nearest window on the east side, from hence the sound had come.

A few kilometers out onto the sea barrier, the Aqualord had splattered against the outer barrier like a fly on a window. She was currently in the process of prying herself off, one wing at a time.

"Oh, look, the Aqualord's back," Valwin droned somewhere behind her. "Let her in."

"First of, no. Second, Luna just left so I cannot tell her of any changes to our fusion shield. Third, no," Zelas said.

"Right," Rangort said. "Last time we saw her, she was Lyos chewing coral. I would rather not find out that she has become a doll controlled by our enemy, as Lyos had been susceptible to."

This caused a ruckus of chattering down below. The dragons thought the gods should be respected, except for their subtle doubts shining through, the humans wanted the extra forces aboard and had Orun as their loudest voice, and her own devils were all over the place.

"Where did Memphy go?" Milgazia asked. "She and Sylphiel were here just a moment ago."

If Zelas hadn't been so hyper aware of him as the first one whose head she wanted to bite off, she would've dismissed it among the noise. Not now. Especially not now.

Zelas focused on the water and saw a trail of white shooting east below the surface. It emerged at the edge and yes, that was the Zenaffa of Memphis. Zelas had seen it a few times around the island. Two smaller figures were on its shoulders, one of which jumped into the water with an air shield around.

She broke the window and deprojected to plow through the murky astral plane. Bursts of muck interspersed with salt air brought her closed to the eastern border. By then, the Aqualord had rearranged herself already. While the god cleared the area of nearby devils, the human had made a small island by raising earth using magical vines, the elf helped stack and a vulpen — Filia's beast — darted around with his devices. Gaia's power flowed in concord with them.

The vulpen noticed her first, almost dropping something he worked on. A second was enough for her to get right before them.

"Wait, don Zelas! It was all a pl—"

She slashed her sword at him, but it scratched over a sickening astral hollow. Drawing back from the Zenaffa, she tried to focus herself — fresh off of holy mind mutilation wasn't helping her. Jillas scrambled behind the leg, pulled out a tiny bomb and called to Sylphiel, "Ready yet?"

"Five more seconds!"

The Zenaffa kicked at Zelas, missed and would have been ripped apart if the Aqualord hadn't rammed her head against the shield right then. She didn't get through, but the resonance of her power with the Earthlord's sent a shockwave that threw Zelas back. Just long enough.

Jillas ignited a tiny magicless bomb and the island exploded, leaving behind a crude ring of roots and earth that was entirely natural. The shield registered it as Gaia's magic, served as edge for both barriers and zip, the god poured through.

Zelas prepared for a number of hostile events, but none of them involved being picked along by the dragon without any harm what so ever.

Before she understood it, the Aqualord had teleported into the central hall, where she dropped Zelas and others aside of the lowest central platform. Then she expanded her form and curled upward. Rangort pushed against her, but didn't outright attack. To the left, Orun just barely kept Valwin from joining in. Zelas caught some of her words, a rapid chain of explanation that made no sense. _It was a plot. Xelloss was a mole for us. I'm sorry._ The rest drowned in the rush of the gods above.

The Aqualord filled the hall with torrents of ghostly scales and moderate resentment.

"Okay, now who broke my pledge stone?"

Zelas snapped her head to the source.

"Gunmoll, you made it!"

Jillas threw his arms around Filia ul Copt — _very much alive_ — just as Memphis withdrew her armor.

Filia returned the hug before she looked around, angry at first but soon more worried. "Xelloss? Where are you?"

"He didn't arrive when we left the tower," Sylphiel said. "Isn't that normal?"

"He was supposed to split from the army as soon as they got in," Filia said. "Val's in control, but if he slips up just once, Valgarv might attack him or warn the others. Uhm, maybe he's waiting to prank us?"

Filia looked around again, only to find more stunned mortal faces. More than a few asked whether she was real. Zelas did similar, private in her own mind.

Orun approached her, said a few quiet words, then turned to the dragons and elves. "She is real. She did die, but never left for hell because of a pact. It was all a plot that went so wrong the moment Luna and Zelas cut Ragrairyos in half by accident."

Oh. Xelloss. Had been involved in a plot. How ... not new.

For the first time in her life, Zelas felt like conducting the practice of headdesking, though more refined : replace the desk with a guillotine. She'd live, but this was the height of embarrassing.

Filia's eyes landed on Zelas and within a golden blink she stood before her, small in her human form but somehow an obstacle. "Why on earth didn't you figure out it was a ploy?"

"He's not supposed to be able to disobey me," Zelas said dully.

"He _wasn't_! He did all of this on your will," Filia said.

"I ... he went mad, or so it looked."

"I know, that's what we meant for! But why would you _keep_ thinking that?" Filia asked. Her face scrunched up, desperate. "You created him. You were supposed to be shocked long enough for Dalphin to believe it, but you would figure things out and not get emotional and stupid. Where is he?"

She feared that Zelas might have killed him, and might not be wrong.

Whenever she said that unexpected things always happen, Zelas had meant : _it may happen that the want of a nail ruins my kingdom and I am bracing myself for this, as it is a natural effect of causality._ It took a lot of mental acrobatics to predict oneself as being the nail instead of the rider, however.

"So ... this all was a plot to plant Xelloss as a mole for some purpose. How did he get that idea?"

"It was mine," Filia said.

"Yours?"

 _Off course_ Xelloss wouldn't be drawn to a dragon unless she was like him. Hadn't he told her years ago?

_"From what I heard, during their first meeting she pretended to be a vicious monster attacking the city to provoke miss Lina into displaying her power. She has a manipulative streak, I really shouldn't have been surprised when she turned out to be a rebel too. Too bad it's hampered by her silly standards."_

Zelas had set in motion a lot of things that would force Filia to abandon those standards, if not her morals. In hindsight, she should have seen.

"Yes, _mine_ ," Filia said. "Is this it, are we going to argue now on whether I can? We have a crisis here, where—"

"Why would you?" She stalled, because Filia's question sounded even worse than before.

"I would because my priority is the world. I will use what I can to save the world, whether it's a god, a shard of the world's staff, ignorance, Lucifer's name, or your son, ... or my son." Her voice broke at that last part. "Now, where is Xelloss?"

Zelas would have liked to say in a most condescending tone that she might have used him up altogether, sneer at her, nose turned up because a dirty dragon like her deserved no better.

Maybe she could speak of how she too used people, the most recent one being Filia's friend to kill Xelloss, ha ha, wasn't it all amusing? What a nice world.

"I don't know." Don't know enough about anything including her own priest, and that was the worst joke she had ever heard.

**· · · · · · ·**


	41. Val's Frost

**· · · · · · ·**

Xelloss was supposed to have split from the devil armies as soon as they were inside and henceforth inform everyone on team Existence Is Awesome of things. That having failed, Ragrairyos solved the issue of all these confused people by taking the nearest monk aside, asking for a soul window, and telepathically dumped a concise explanation in their head.

Meanwhile, Filia stumbled through a similar explanation in words, her audience an outwardly apathetic Zelas. Inwardly, Zelas seemed to discover self hatred under the weight of the humiliation she had more or less inflicted on herself. Though, she was at least sound of mind enough to feed on Filia's toxic mix of panic and rage. When she at least mentioned she had sent Luna Inverse to kill Xelloss, she did so with fair poise, especially considering the profanities Filia threw at her.

Rangort succinctly informed Ragrairyos that if this plan went wrong for more reasons than just Zelas, she would be on the block with the other two gods, as far as Rangort was concerned. Ragrairyos worried about that, less for what Lina might do and more for the idea of Rangort getting twitchy about the future too. Zelas having taking a speed course in existential angst was bad enough on its own.

Valwin took the revelation of the convoluted plan in fairer weather and seemed mostly disturbed by Orun having led him around the yard. Hir was a tad too scared because it suddenly hit that being a good could be vulnerable, which Ragrairyos could sympathize with with. Unfortunately.

In the middle of this, she didn't notice that Milgazia in human form had walked right below her, Memphis at his side. A cloud of apprehension surrounded them, so thick she couldn't tell whether it was both of them or just one.

"Aqualord, now a child controls two pieces of Shabranigdu? Why did you not teleport him here, as you brought yourself, rather than let him return to the north and bring a demon army here?"

Milgazia initiating contact, life was weird lately.

"Valgarv still has a remnant of Luna's power, which allows him to teleport if he sees a need. Our original plan was to teleport him here in a contained area to ensure he didn't go anywhere we didn't want, but alas, we couldn't get onto Elmegiddo. Not only did we lack that, we had every reason to assume the other gods would attack us. The last thing we need is me losing control of a barrier and Val having to invoke Shabranigdu's power to defend himself. So better give him an army of cannon fodder. It's better than risk Valgarv taking over; he is entirely the kind of person to set loose devil kings when he runs out of other options. Facts : he has a demonsblood talisman and two pieces of Shabranigdu. Also facts : I alone cannot handle two pieces of Shabranigdu, and I cannot coordinate well with the other gods."

"You also said the child is not in perfect control." Milgazia's tone was rushed, more urgent and accompanied by specks of hopelessness. "Your plan seems ill founded, when it went wrong so early.

"I built the doll you saw around the mental system of Lyos, I did not account for it taking orders from Luna. Otherwise, our plan went fine," Ragrairyos said.

"I disagree," Valwin said though Orun, whom just stepped onto the platform. One of Rangort's remaining angels and all hir monks nodded vigorously somewhere in the background.

"Why did you not wait until Sailoon's next rendez-vous date?" Milgazia asked.

"We learned that Zelas was losing her mind, then Xelloss confirmed that she might be, so we took the risk," Ragrairyos said. "It's true that she was unbalanced while we were gone, was she not?"

"Ah. So these were not merely tantrums, she was on the verge of ending the world. We should have seen."

"Oh heaven, I didn't realize it was that bad. Can she do that without talismans or denying her power?" Memphis asked.

"The talismans are not needed. Using a tool to end the world could be a problem, but she has a whole court of chimeras who can use tools without problem," Valwin said.

"I did not end the world despite everything," Zelas growled from aside. "And I certainly will not now."

"I do not think we're going to take that chance," Rangort said. "Valwin, take Orun and see whether you can communicate with Vrabazard. Write language in the sky if needed. We need him to back off Shabranigdu and do something about Dalphin and Dynast and their armies."

Valwin unprojected to teleported hirself and Orun away.

Zelas sauntered up the platform, almost careless as she faced Ragrairyos. "From what I understand, the intent of the child steers Valgarv. So when Valgarv arrives here, he will appear to act as himself yet summon Lina? How are we to know who steers him when he operates the machine?"

Filia teleported before her again. "I will know. _You_ keep out of this, you don't know anything about spiritual matters anyway."

"Truly, I should keep out of this? Fusion magic would be very useful. If miss Luna were to kill Xelloss, or he does not arrive for another reason, I may be your only source of dark magic."

One sniff of their emotions and Ragrairyos knew they weren't going to get any usable fusion from these two.

The flow broke as Valgarv's chimera approached the island, closer and closer. They could hope that Xelloss popped up in the meantime, but hope alone wouldn't fix anything. They needed to do something.

Ragrairyos pulled the angelsblood talisman from her subspace container and dropped it in Filia's hands. "See whether you can contact Luna."

Filia folded the talisman in her hands and closed her eyes to focus, but to no avail. Energy grasped around in all directions too long, and even it found a hold, it was too weak to speak.

"What's _wrong_ with her? I've done it before, even when she was half poisoned," Filia asked.

"I'd call her wholly poisoned now. She has an illegitimate pact with Zelas," Rangort's main monk said. "It goes deeper than a mere poisoning."

"What? How did that even happen?"

"The same way as she leaked into your dreams, I presume," Rangort's monk said. "I would not know because the Earthlord cannot see anything, let alone her."

So no odds of contacting Luna and request she bring Xelloss here rather than murder him, and increased odds of Filia not making fusion with Zelas work.

Milgazia had backed away from Zelas, but wasn't entirely off the platform. His focus was still on Ragrairyos, expectant. What she said next wasn't what he'd wanted to hear, but there were bigger things to worry about.

"Milgazia, gather everyone mortal to the southern caves, save Filia and Orun."

"Wait, we can help!" Memphis said. "Me and Sylphy could fuse magic, just give us a whole lot of vessels!"

They would do for the purpose of protective shields, probably. Not for the amount Lina would need for splitting deity souls, but that was a worry for later. "Alright, but go into a side room and stay close to the door in case you must flee."

"As you command, Aqualord!" Memphis said proudly. She pulled Jillas along, Sylphiel followed her, and Milgazia still stood here. He seemed to want to say something, but changed his mind. When he, Azonge and the monks took off to organize, Ragrairyos had a few moments to assess think.

Outside, Vrabazard had driven off Dalphin and Dynast, whom she was sure had tried to bait the god away from the devil chimera king. Now he had spotted his main target, only to run into Valwin. She could imagine Vrabazard concluding Valwin was being dense, because he picked a fight to get past.

There was no telling whether Val was truly in charge or not, not even by contacting the nereids. They told her the thing didn't give orders to the devil armies since passing the barrier, but that was it for information.

On the topic of things that Ragrairyos couldn't tell, what about Filia's immortality pledge? Filia was fairly safe when shielded by fusion or covered by an immortality pledge, but they might have neither within seconds. The obvious was that Claire would fuse magic with Val. Between herself and a piece of Shabranigdu, Lina might not have enough fusion energy for the whole thing, but it was better than Valgarv getting a chance to kill their only living channel of Siephied.

Now, that left one issue : right now she was a god whose trust and concord was entirely methodical while Val was a child who operated on an emotional level of loyalty and goals. Crap. She's have to be more human and look who just came stepped into the hall. Leyunso had a few signs of shackles and burn marks, but nevertheless smirked like the day couldn't be better. She waved at Claire.

This better not be like the previous time Leyunso had done ... whatever that had been ... to her.

**· · · · · · ·**

Valgarv's mind leaked into Val, small yet at the same time like having boiling oil poured over him. Whether that was the fault of Shabranigdu's evil or the hatred of Valgarv — almost every memory from either was suffering and violence. Only a few were not of inflicting this, but receiving. Those were of Valgarv's childhood, when the world was bigger and his body felt small like Val's own. Those were the most real, threatening to tear him down more than any other. He had no nation to lose, not like Valgarv did, yet they were his people. It wasn't as distant as the idea of himself hurting others, because he yet had loved ones to lose.

Holed up within the soul, he could let Valgarv do the fighting as long as he held the chains. Mental limitations blended with fusion magic, but it was his own strength that had to pull. He could let Valgarv fight Vrabazard, just not kill him. He could not tell him wipe out the golden dragons they met on the way, because Val's mother wouldn't like that. Val had a harder time pulling the reigns on that. He only remembered them as frightening, chasing him, hurting Molly, hurting his nest siblings, killing his people ... Valgarv's people, his own ...

He snapped himself out of the toxic trail of thinking. The machine wasn't much further, now surrounded by an intricate tower. Navigating that would take too long, so he let Valgarv play out the command to go to Elmegiddo by smashing through the walls.

Valgarv has used Shabranigdu's power to appear as a red plate covered ancient dragon, but sleeker for speed. This form was tall enough that he had to bow all the way and still wasn't at eye level with the platform. In vain, he tried to make Valgarv take a smaller form. Now that Valgarv had carried out the programming, he went in a mental circle on what he wanted next. Pulling himself up by the chains, Val surfaced to seize control of the form. He couldn't do this for long, so he had to be quick.

His mother flew up and stopped in mid air before him, held by holy magic. On her back was a tiny point of blue power, the Aqualord in the form of Claire. Or was it just Claire? She smiled and waved at him, so it was easier to ignore Valgarv's insistence to see her as a deity only.

"Val, are you there?"

"Yes, mom," he said, carefully moving his snout closer to her. "Sorry, I lost Xelloss. Valgarv came out and attacked him. He got away, but I couldn't help him more than that."

"It's okay, you did well," Filia said as she laid her own nose against his for a moment. "Did you see miss Luna on the way?"

Val tried shaking his head, but only managed a twitch to either side. "Sorry, nowhere. I bet I would've seen her if she was killing any devils and taken her along, but I don't think she's in my direction."

"Alright," Claire said. "Xelloss didn't make it, so we need another way to get a lot of dark energy once miss Lina arrives. Do you think you can help us with that?"

"I don't think I fit on the platform like this," he said.

Claire climbed over Filia's neck to lay a tiny hand on Val's snout. Her power was so sharp and dense, she had to be pulled herself together with all might. This focus let her push holy magic at him through a tiny point, small enough to measure by. Val didn't have a clue how, but somehow it helped draw on the reflex of transformation. Within a flash he turned into a humanoid form.

His mother startled. When he unfolded his wings to stay in air, he felt the different. Rather than the child he should be, he'd only withdrawn into Valgarv's half devil form, or something akin. His horn was there, but his hair long like Valteyra.

"I'm still me!" he blurted. To cement that, he backed off and let himself drop to the ground, trying to appear smaller.

His mother transformed into a human and landed before him. Fearless as he knew her, she stepped closer with a smile.

"So that's what your eyes would have been. They're a beautiful."

The eyes Valgarv had never quite gotten right in dragon form, or even human form, because they had been fixed, Valgarv and Volphied had to see through them.

"I wish I could've shown you somewhere better, mom," he said.

Claire adjusted her form to match him and held out her hand. "It may yet happen, if miss Lina returns soon enough. She could save you."

"She better," he said with a grin. "I have a whole lot of catching up to do."

When he took her hand, Shabranigdu recoiled at her holiness and Valgarv hissed in the back of his mind. All the memories of genocide poured in, a voice calling for justice from the neglectful gods. Nevertheless, Val took a step closer to Claire. "Wanna bet we can do better than mom and Xelloss? It shouldn't be hard to one-up evil wizard cone person thingy."

Claire actually laughed at that. "I'll bet you we can do better, Val."

His mother nodded, albeit tense. "There'll be three of us, we will do."

Claire teleported him to the control panel for the deciding moment. Forcing his arm first into that of a dragon, the scales turned crystalline. He rammed this into the machine, where the crystals mingled with the fiber network.

First he shut down Volphied's access route, so she wouldn't knew the gateway had been activated. Next he terminated the dove access system so Valgarv couldn't circumvent him.

The code to let Lina Inverse return to the universe was a complicated three segments. First to open the three gates all the way to the White World, then to disable the protocol that prevented her from crossing them more than once, and then to prevent the mechanism that would trap her between worlds if she bypassed the first two.

Claire wrapped her fingers around his free hand, the brush of holy magic ready for fusion.

In the Black World, the five weapons charged up a gate that Sirius would (think he would) control, which provided the energy for the gates both ways. How long it would take for Lina to arrive was up in the air, but they couldn't rush.

Ragnarok cracked all around them, only visible through the power Valgarv had stolen from Luna. The actual breaking point was high above the atmosphere to minimize further destabilization of the area, while the point of entry congregated all energy only a few hundred meters above the platform. The liminal space didn't have form.

There had to be a lot of cool ways to use that for every day teleportation, right?

A split second too late he understood that that tiny distraction was had cost him. Valgarv tore back to consciousness not on Shabanigdu's energy, but made a soul gate within by using Luna's energy. A blur of regret poured through Val's mind. Should have not looked, not been curious, sorry, what now, help ...

His body barely flinched, and the excitement of Val was replaced with Valgarv's sharper glee. The codes went through, but static followed them. The panels of the gate opened too fast to handle the surge of power from the other side.

Where was he again?

**· · · · · · ·**

Claire had precisely two reasons for holding hands : one, being approachable was handy when dealing with kids. Two, if he did anything suspicious she could electrocute him. Now that his emotions did a sudden shift, she did exactly that.

Valgarv slumped down, his arm still stuck in the control panel.

In a anteroom, Filia lay asleep, guarded by a fusion shield from Memphis and Sylphiel. She was up and ready for dream intervention, rebooted. That Valgarv had taken this long to mess things up was quite the pleasant surprise, really. Really pleasant. Let's focus on that, little god, rather than the many varied ways that sizzling gate could implode and take the world with it.

Filia's astral projection joined up right as Claire cast a dream gate on Valgarv. Filia slipped onto the dream plane and Claire lifted along, letting one part of her consciousness reside with the humanoid soul and the other stretched out to aid within the soul.

Within Valgarv's dream, they found themselves on barren plains, with ruined cathedrals and scattered ancient bodies. A memory revived into a nightmare, where Valgarv forever lived alone. To Claire it felt both absurd and devastating at the same time; the latter had to be her more mortal side, because that's what Filia felt. Of course she'd still be moved by his plight. Leyunso would be forever wrong that feeling like this would be worth anything. No, it was just something Claire had to bite through, after Val it wouldn't be needed anymore.

Valgarv stood between Filia and a glazed over ruin, which had a dramatically appropriate collapsed eight-cross leaning on it. Lower walls were on either side, behind which lay piles of corpses. A courtyard by chance, or the suggestion of prison.

"Another trap? As if I'd fall for the same twice," Valgarv scoffed, even as he slipped into the dream.

Claire could not tell whether he played along or whether he truly forgot the beginning, but within a beat, he acted as if in the middle of an argument with Filia.

"Xelloss has killed hundreds and delivered thousands to my banquet. It was so much easier to gather miasma when we have him, _thanks to you_. What a fitting way to honor your legacy. Alone you cannot kill so many. I'm sure your surface aversion to killing that you call compassion matters nothing when you don't have to _see_ anyone beg for their lives."

Filia didn't look at him, her eyes instead fixed on her own reflection in the icy walls beyond him; she had expected no less than more accusation. While Filia's reflection was her own, Claire's was Granny Aqua; the kind of accusation Claire hadn't been prepared for. Unwilling, she stood as a child next to Filia.

Valgarv ranted on. "Did you know he went further than he had to? That's why nobody really suspected anything, he really looked like he was a true devil cut loose from a flawed lord. What does that make you?"

"Just myself, with your wounds. I wouldn't have done that if you had not put the world in this position," Filia said, her voice even, yet her eyes darted over the wall. She probably saw her accusation play out. All Claire saw was Granny Aqua's unchanging smile, and none of the death.

"Then what position are you putting the world in with the Apostle of Chaos? Did you know that in payment for the white talisman, Bone Dragon Raiphied asked Lina to destroy a world? _Let our Mother in_ , they asked, and she let Her in. As gods and devils have always been, she learned to be Lucifer's Slave."

The wall at last changed for Claire, turned to a night sky filling with gold that leaked from a pitch black hole. A tiny figure stood on the low horizon, growing as the mirage honed in on her. Lina alone in a golden temple, on the edge of the stars. On her hand lay a motionless Giga Slave, at which she stared with sorrow.

"I just do what Lina Inverse does, but I would purify this world for better reasons while she moves out of greed."

"You've lied before," Filia said.

"But it matches what you know, right? Zelas will claim Shabranigdu's power, the gods become another Phied and Lina Inverse makes this world her own game."

"If that were true, better miss Lina than you."

"You really believe that? A human you had to bribe into saving the world?" His voice kept rising, but he could provoke neither fury nor zeal from Filia. It wasn't all strength, for half of it stemmed for her exhaustion.

"Why do you think I really do this?" Then, Valgarv fell to his knees. "How can I make you listen?"

Neither Valgarv the charismatic, ruthless warrior, or Valgarv the suffering dark messiah would have bowed before her.

The one Valtera might have been, he would have. Claire knew as much from the memories she had once unearthed for Val, some carefully laid away and others safely given. Valtera had once believed in the way of his people, when he was young. The highest fall hardest.

"We both bear the sins of our names, I moreso than you. You haven't lost sight while I listened to Volphied when I should not have, but going through with this does not _need_ to play into her cards." Valgarv or Valtera, was there a difference? This wasn't right. Narcissists would never admit fault with themselves, right?

Filia squeezed Claire's hand a little, either seeking or giving support.

"You want me to die after all? Then at least let me die _into_ my true self," he said.

Filia had seen him once, long ago in visions. A moment before the tree of life between the pillars of creation, which she had thought his true desire. A few seconds before his death, when he embraced the death he had wished for.

... what if Val's influence was working in reverse? Hadn't there once been a form of Val, grown up yet protective of his family, back in Kataart? Claire couldn't even tell anymore whose thought that was, because the full force of Filia's mind took over the dream. All her guilt and heritage got dragged into this, her hope worst of all.

Every beat of her heart could be for saving him if she took but one step further. Valgarv the dark messiah had been shattered, but Valtera was a idol yet untouched.

"Who are you?" Filia asked, already knowing what she wanted him to be.

"I don't know," he said. "I think ... the last time I was here, everyone around me was dead."

The walls, the prison, crumbled around them safe for the one right behind him. Snow began falling on the carcasses, all young ancient dragons. All but the prodigy at transformation had died, him alone spared because his trick let him hide so much easier.

It was no child before them, though, it was the young dragon who survived the cradle massacre and became one of the few warriors. Valtera, the last, now returned from the weight of devil nature.

"I know what I am to do and why, but ... ," he stammered. "Filia ... I know you, but how? I know ... oh gods, what have I done?"

He fell forward, head slamming into the ground as he screamed. "Why did I do this? Damn you all, Volphied, Siephied, Dark Star! ... damn me."

Filia let go of Claire and took two steps closer, but she froze when he sat up. Clouded eyes met her clear blue.

"Forgive me." Valtera sat up on one knee, close enough for her to take the hand he offered. Desperate, he said, "Help me and we can still make this right."

Filia, or perhaps Claire herself, took in his emotions. To their holiness, it was the poison of fear and sorrow, thrown together to prove himself. It was _regret_.

"How would you do it differently?" Filia asked. "Valgarv said what he did was right too."

"I don't know what's right, but you? We could fuse the power ourselves. You would have the holiness, I would add to my darkness. Together, we can undermine the astral plane first, destroy all evil and then lead the living down the right path. Your can find ways do reinvent nature."

Filia laid her hand in his, savoring what might be the first time Valgarv or Valtera touched her with care. He pulled a little, but she did not take another step.

"In our world, the doves don't need to die to feed the cats. We could heal and remake any life to fit together without suffering. You understood the world before I did, so you also understand how it can be better. Lead me the way."

With these words on his voice, he seemed more beautiful to Filia than ever before. Claire had never imagined that an idol would be like this to a mortal. With her own clan, she had been but a leader of people, yet where Filia hailed from, sanctity was a chain on the mind woven with her hopes and her benevolence.

Filia knew this much, the sole reason she did not say yes.

If she took a step back from her heart, the facts were that Jillas and Gravos never really felt sorry for what they'd done. Their allegiance had simply changed to someone who gave them less criminal orders. Luna and Xelloss? She'd had to verbally fight both of them, Luna for weeks, Xelloss for years. Neither had been willing to stop treating people like pawns until dire circumstances made it necessary for them. Once need ran out, they might not remain so considerate.

Right now, it was necessary for Valgarv that he survive. Unlike Jillas, Gravos, Luna and Xelloss at this point, Valgarv was an immediate threat and had every reason to try fooling his captors. That's all that Fillia could allow to matter, her mind's chorus of sin and salvation be damned.

She let go of his hand. The way his expression broke didn't quite remind her of Val. No, it was so much worse. Val had never looked this forsaken, only the way someone who saw too much blood can do.

"How can I trust you not to betray me? After all, I don't know any Valtera. He might be long dead."

"No, Filia, I'm ... what can I do to prove you I'm real?"

Filia's doubt jarred Claire out of the eerie blend of their minds, brought her back to herself. Maybe he was real, Claire put forth, but only insofar the former Val had been.

"You can make sense of yourself. If you are truly repentant, why do you need _me_ for you to stop your scourge on the world?" Filia said.

"I've made too much mistakes," he said, now turning his head down. "I'll make them again, but you won't."

"No, Valgarv," Filia said. "I take back what I said before. I owe you but one thing : my anger of all the pain you will cause. Me leading you down a path you alone chose is not repentance. Valtera, if you are real, I am sorry, but I _cannot_ risk the whole world over you."

For Filia, who only ever felt anger as a flare and a burst over more trivial matters of life, this was a stranger's words, but she needed them. That she would be tempted by the promise of salvation for another, how much more could the world mock her? If Lucifer watched and laughed, Filia understood why.

As Filia let her idle dream die, Claire found herself and her reason in the fragments of facts. He admitted mistakes, yet did not care for Filia's forgiveness as much as he needed her mercy and trust. He did not beg for his life, but access to Elmegiddo. He hadn't even remembered that he had to add an apology. All of that she wanted to spit out at him, but she just stood by as Filia braced her arms.

When Filia clenched her fists, the chains around his wings became visible. They'd never left, but they had been unattended while Val let go to activate the summoning of Lina.

Valtera, or Valgarv, resigned and regretted, let it happen. Whether it was real or not did not matter, more than likely it was just another construct like Val had been. Maybe Filia had figured that out all along, and Claire had been the one to fall for it. What might've happened if he'd paid attention to her? Not being good enough hurt her, even if she couldn't fall apart like a typical astral being.

To pull herself together, she told Valgarv, "Thank you for your self distraction _again_."

Whether the smug look she tried to give worked out was up in the air. The mirror behind him still reflected her as Granny Aqua, a dim outline over a world dying in gold. That could be this world, if either her or Filia had been a little weaker, a little more gullible.

In the black beyond Claire's reflection, Lina stood up and turned to them. Black turned bone white.

"Hey, Valgarv. Did you make that AI just now or was that another one from Volphied?"

Like a scythe cutting down the grass, the persona before them crumbled. Valgarv strained against the chains now, barely able to turn around. "Lina Inverse? How are you here?"

**· · · · · · ·**

Lina was at peak smugness when she said, "Remember that nice talisman you're using to control Shabranigdu? Zelas made that to be handled by Xelloss and guess which nice people are familiar enough with the prick to figure out his astral residue on it and thus his code magic? Me and Val."

Cue on this, Val peeked from behind Lina's legs and held up a red rock. He stuck out his tongue at Valgarv.

"Well, mostly me, he's a kid without experience with magical tracking, let alone coding. But he gave me all the access to your soul that I need for a stable line."

"Hey! You wouldn't be anywhere without me!" Val pouted. "If I do little, then all you're doing is putting the data in the port over there."

Lina looked a tad embarrassed at that.

"Fine, fine, credit's due where it's due," Lina said, leaned down to ruffle his hair. "We both did a lot."

Valgarv swore they would pay for this.

In a distant planet in another universe, Volphied whispered her disappointment to him. He should not have fallen for the same trick twice, she said, but how was he supposed to know? The chains had been so tight, when they fell loose he had been sure the child's inherent weakness was to blame.

Filia threw one of the chains to Val, who broke through the wall. Lina winked and said, "See you all in a minute!" before shattering.

Val was left standing, one hand holding the chain and the other glowing with holy power. Together with Filia, he kept Valgarv in place while Ragradia faded out.

This was the third time someone caught him in a dream, Volphied pointed out far away. Enough. Wake up.

Valgarv struggled to open his eyes, only to look right at Filia's astral projection.

He lay on his back, his arm broken and the crystals only in a thin line with the machine. Filia hovered over him, her hands on a seal above his solar plexus.

"Well played, little lady," he said.

She only looked away as she faded out.

He tried to grab her, but something held him back.

Ice crystals pinned him down, cold despite the divine power. Somewhere here Claire had to be, but he didn't see her. Filia faded out too. He couldn't even tell what Val did within his own soul.

Far above, the gateway opened.

With all his power, he jerked at his arms and wings. It might be too late to stop the codes from running, but he could still destroy the gateway. It would at least buy him a world without Lina Inverse.

He kept the talisman in a small pocket dimension, safe from being shattered by easily accessible. The distance served for controlling the hosts, but for something more drastic, he had to bring it out. Pulling it in the open, he clasped it in his free hand. By pushing Shabranigdu's energy through it, he focused it all in his claws.

Just a little more, and then he was free.

When the ice broke, Ragradia manifested between him and the gate, looming massive over him. Her power already gathered to rebind him. He wouldn't let her. Gathering energy within the talisman, he threw it at the floor. It took the control panel along and set him free. Ragradia shot at him, but he was faster.

Off the control area, he jumped onto the glowing green platform. He told Shabranigdu he would end his enemy this way, and that got him energy more easily than usual.

That Ragradia nor Rangort made a move should've warned him.

The portal opened. Volphied's sound was louder to him than ever, but so was the golden rush on the astral plane.

Falling out of the light were three tiny human figures, Lina Inverse at the lead. Hers was the gold.

Valgarv spread his wings, filling the space around him with bloody darkness. He formed a red sphere between draconic hands and his wings.

Lina twisted around in the air as she ignited a Ragna Blade. Valgarv raised his free claw to fire, but he was too late. The full forse of the Ragna Blade cut through his attack first, then cleaved his right wing and arm off.

Valgarv screamed, but didn't slow down. Lina just barely shot out of range of his slash.

The severed wing and arm fell into the water. Valgarv hesitated between going after Lina or the lost limbs, then opted for the latter. He ignored the arm, just burned the hole shot. The host was more important.

Shabranigdu twisted with his half released power through the wing, boiling the water. Out of his palm, Valgarv grew the organic wires Volphied had taught him to reconnect with the nervous system and through that, the soul.

Energy peeled off one of his wings, flowing up ... to Ragradia. Lina and her lapdogs gathered below the Aqualord emerging in full dragon form, whose godly light merged with the treacherous darkness.

His wing wasn't grown back yet, but Lina already got herself a hefty dose of fusion magic. His power wouldn't matter if she could just neutralize it. She would either hit him, or entrap him. Either way it would be his death on her terms again. He couldn't let that happen.

 _Think_ , Volphied said. _You have ways yet._

Gourry handed Lina his sword to use as channel. Time's up.

This time he took no risks with them, and all risk with himself : he swallowed the demonsblood talisman. At once, his remaining wing solidied with power. Using Shabranigdu's soul to patch the hole, he cut off the part of his mind that contain Val and thrust it into the severed wing.

Lina shouted for him to stop, but it wasn't important. Coherence burned away, a primitive demon crawling in deeper. No matter. He could hold out long enough. He just had to get out of here.

Using the talisman, he cut his connection with the host in the severed wing, and all exchange of power between the two pieces of Shabranigdu. One piece he kept himself, the other he pushed at the soul of Val. At the cost of one piece, he rid himself of the pest.

He threw away severed wing, which began mutating the second it was loose. Shabranigdu versus a child, even without a broken soul, the demon would win.

"Little lady, here's what you wanted!" he called to her. She wouldn't look at him, but she couldn't avoid hearing. "The last ancient dragon bleeding out!"

Hmm, he could have said something better, but too late.

Lina hesitated a second too long. Valgarv burned away the ground below him, straight into the earth.

**· · · · · · ·**

He could do that? She hadn't seen either the severance nor the tunnel coming. Was Volphied giving him ideas?

"Miss Lina, do something!" Zelas roared.

"Claire, which is the bigger threat?" Lina asked.

Valgarv appeared to move away from the island. "It's the host that Val's holding back right now."

"Val's doing that? Like Lezo and Pokota once did?"

The wing itself was just a pulsating, growing blob of flesh and black feathers while the fetus grew more humanoid, but Claire recognized dragon residue. It wasn't unlike what a dragon cursed with Raugnut Rushavna. "I'm sure, miss Lina. Chaos magic aside, can you now cast multiple spells at once by any chance?"

"I wish," Lina said. "I can fly cause of a resident magic trick, but everything else I've yet to invent tricks for. I can cheat with Ragna Blade and that's it. So, how much of this place can we afford to wreck while sealing old Shabby here?"

"Depends on how much of Val's alive in there," Claire said.

"I see," Lina said. "Filia, you can astrally project now, right? Val could use any backup."

"You don't even need to ask," Filia said.

Once more Filia left her body behind and ghosted along on Claire's flow. While Claire surrounded the — thing, not Val anymore — Lina brought out another Ragna blade, flanked by Gourry with his sword ready and Naga in position.

"I want Rangort in place as a shield for the machine," Lina said. "Gourry and I are about do a lot of getting and it's not gonna be pretty."

**· · · · · · ·**

Sometimes he caught a glimpse of Lina's work. Rangort held down Shabranigdu's leaking, but it was her who prepared a seal to contain the host. The trouble being, she had to invent a lasting fusion barrier on the spot, one that would persist even if she didn't control it. Claire's incorporeal presence stayed with him, a whisper in his mind clouded by the red devil. She drifted further and further away the more Val lost himself to the devil king.

The way Valgarv controlled the hosts involved neurological interface, an organic way to control how much the hosts felt, with the talisman to control the eb and tide of Shabranigdu's power. Without a talisman, Val's soul alone stood between the complete awakening and the safety of everyone around him. He had to both throw all his will against the king of devils and concentrate on leeching off energy to give Claire. Trying to pull something in while trying to push it back in was no easy balance to strike, he could barely tell what was too much.

Shabranigdu was both better than Valgarv's personal venom and so much worse in how little he was like any living being. Simple, burning hatred for existence, devoid of nuance and motivation. Val used the nerves in his wings to attach to the host now, but through this Shabranigdu's power seeped into his own soul. If there was a way to stop it, it had gone with the talisman.

Val crumbled along with every bar restored on the host's soul, but he would not let go. Shabranigdu gnawed at his soul every second, Claire tried to claw Val's soul apart from him, but Val felt the end. Some doors can only be closed from the inside, souls were like that.

Was it selfish to ask whether he could see his mother now? Would Claire think she wasn't enough?

"I know I'm not enough," Claire said. "Don't worry, she's already coming."

Claire opened a soul gate for them, hoping to help the curse be managed by blending her mind with Val's.

"Hi again, mom!" Val cracked a weak smile, which Filia met alike. Neither lasted long.

"Val, I'm here."

Filia took the chains from Val, drawing on the Aqualord's power to hold them. Within this, who truly fused magic blurred away. Gently, Filia wrapped her arms around Val, giving over all her holy power.

Little by little, Val disintegrated. First his feet down to the bones, and the tips of his wings. It hurt not in the way cutting flesh did, but rather a projection that withered with its astral body.

Val laid his head against his mother's shoulder. "You and everyone else is gonna be safe now that Lina's back, right?"

"We will be," she said. "Right, miss Claire?"

"She's what we hoped she would be and she always fixes things," Claire said quietly. Val could tell it wasn't what she'd really wanted to say. "We'll see it through the end."

"Then it's okay. Can you stay, mom? It's really hard to keep Ruby Eye here. He's too much cat."

Despite everything, his mother smiled at this. "Yes, he really is, isn't he?"

"Don't cry too long for me, mom," Val said, holding her hands. "It's better if you get happy again soon. Okay?"

She choked her her words before she could say, "I'll try."

Gently, she kissed the top of his head.

"You were worth loving, Val."

It was the last Val was ever aware of.

**· · · · · · ·**

As the last of Val bled out of her hands, Filia clasped them together. A prayer was on the tip of her tongue, but she did not speak it. A cry of pain also begged to be let out. Just an old reflex that she sought to bury, accepting the silence. Filia was keenly aware of the beating of her heart, a hollow sound within herself to match the loss. Every second after the loss became heavier, but she lived with. Claire clung to that, because she herself could not bear it.

She should be a god and not mourn. It didn't really count that she felt anything, did it? She'd been fake for too long, it shouldn't matter. Careful, she took her own thoughts and feelings, and folded them back into a hidden box in her soul. The rush of humanity wouldn't serve her, it had to stay contained or she would break when it only did damage. It would be there, and she could always ask Leyunso to open it again. Not that she thought she ever would want to. Being a god was full time work, she had to fit it.

This done, she severed her spiritual link with Filia.

When Filia returned to her body and woke up, she took several seconds to sit even move.

Jillas came running from further down the hall, where he'd been taking shelter. He dropped at her side, helping her sit up.

"What happened, gunmoll? Where's Val?"

Filia just stared ahead, too drained to put words together.

Staying disembodied, Ragrairyos said, "It could have gone better." On more than one count. Be it nearly falling for a refined act or losing Val, this wasn't the victory she'd hoped for.

"Val's gone again," Filia whispered. Jillas broke down in tears, and Filia embraced him; only for his sake. Her own was sake was far to be sought.

In the main hall, Zelas took her warrior wolf form before Lina.

"Any idea where he would go?" Zelas said.

"If he's anything like before, Valgarv isn't going to care about his survival. He wants revenge," Lina said. "Anyone know what he's most angry about?"

"He killed Val like that to get to us," Ragrairyos said "When it comes to miss Filia, there's more loved ones he can take. Xelloss and Luna are still out there."

"Luna? " Lina asked, incredulous. "Why is Luna in that category? What did she do to Filia?"

"We could be asking that about Xelloss too, but that's not important right now. We have a monsters to catch," Ragrairyos said. "So, Apostle of Chaos, what will we do next?"

Lina's plans were quick and concise : chase Valgarv while Rangort and Valwin contained the host. If they found Xelloss and he was in any shape to be fusing magic, they would make a fusion barrier. Otherwise, Lina would experiment with water cradles.

Quietly, Filia joined the group, a still sobbing Jillas at her side. Neither said a word, even as Lina told Filia she did well, that she didn't have to come. Filia declined the offer to stay with just a shake of the head.

"Did you lock up something too?" Ragrairyos asked her while the others prepared to take off.

"No, I'm just tired of loss," Filia said. "Let's go. I can still teleport."

Filia moved along with her sorrow and regret, which tore at her no matter how much of it dispersed with a holy rezast spell. The source remained, the soul not as settled in its body as it should, and the spell did not remove the source. So Filia had one more scar from Valgarv. She's gotten so good at continuing to walk without showing it. Claire could only do the same.

**· · · · · · ·**


	42. Luna's Flow

**· · · · · · ·**

Had she been able to see in this shrouded sea, he'd be dead already. Too bad for the astral static. And the pissed off earth spirit. And her failing astral body. And her lack of telepathic assistance of dragons with teleportation powers. And everything else. Luna had a bad day again.

After mowing down lesser demons, dodging Dynast and Dalphin, and a failed attempt at going without breath entirely, she had caught a glimpse of Xelloss. Someone had gotten to him before Luna and ripped up part of his face and chest, the damage making him slow. He'd come right at her, but not slowly enough for her to land a blow. That made him reconsider and split altogether. She'd have fired after him if Vrabazard hadn't crashed into the ocean.

The god's physical form mutated with every move. Luna had a moment's regret that she'd suggested Lyos infect him, because he went after aquatic devils in search of Dalphin while ignoring Shabranigdu. Luna tried her best to ignore him while searching for her ever fleeing target.

Xelloss tried shooting for the island, but Luna cut him off every time, leaving his only route back into the chaos.

"I'm sure you can guess I'm here for payback," she said in her dragon voice. "There's not a lot of priests that I can stand and you took one of the few acceptable. What'd you think I'd do?"

He knelt down on the seabed and tried writing something in the sand.

As if she'd humor him now. Bursting ahead, she fanned her power to blind him before the strike. Still he caught her blow. The next second he slipped away.

For some reason he didn't withdraw to the astral plane. He broke away, but turned to face her only a few dozen meters away. For what she could tell from his eyes and emotions, he was ... frustrated?

It didn't add up. Did he plan to try to secret or scheme his way out? Fleeing seemed better, but ... he didn't hate her all that much. Why?

Shouldn't have paused. A shockwave tore through the ocean, Xelloss vanished and the water boiled. She only barely shielded herself against the heat and then had to spend a few seconds healing her body.

Xelloss almost was gone from her sight, but she didn't pursue. Vrabazard was nearby, yet she hadn't sensed him.

Luna rose up through the sea, just enough to look through the surface.

Barreling from the island came a thing not too unlike her own astral body. Oozing miasma and malgrowing as it moved, half a skeletal dragon whose ribcage surrounded a red core.

It saw her too and changed directions.

 _Of course_ it wanted to pick a fight with her. Something had to drive home how bad her day _hadn't_ been.

It barreled right at her. That second spent deciding where to go was too long.

Darkness closed around her, veins and black feathers turning to scales, encasing half her astral body. Tendrils formed walls that bled glowing blood.

A darkened version of Valgarv's human formed emerged, still attached to the carcass by strings of flesh.

"There you are," he said with a mad grin. "It's time for closure."

"Really? I was trying to do my own closure thingy here. Now Xelloss got away."

"No, it's far more than your petty wrath," he said. Every time he spoke, the red light pulsed. She recognized it now. His real body was behind the human form, centered around the demonsblood talisman.

He looked to be gearing up for dramatic final words, but something cut right near Luna's astral body. The magic's grip loosened just enough for Luna to break free. She caught a glimpse of Xelloss shooting into another direction. Weird, but no time to consider.

The thing hesitated when Luna and Xelloss went in different directions, then opted for chasing Luna.

Her human body began to run out of air, begging her to rise and breathe. She ignored the instinct, pushed on as fast as she could. Deeper, closer to earth. The seabed was cracked and devastated from the ancient battle, many small enough lines to hide in.

The monster closed in.

"You'll wish you didn't come back!" he bellowed.

Evil speech, yada yada, so evil. She had better things to do than respond, like escaping.

She dove into the canyon. The thing couldn't keep up with her, but Xelloss did.

Okay, that was peculiar. Why would he follow her? He wasn't the type to care whether he got to personally kill her. Curiosity didn't have fear to temper it and she slowed down.

He grabbed her shoulder and she tore one of his arms off, but he just held on with the other hand. Just a second before he let go and something got pulled off of.

The sea felt a little more alive and Luna moved faster. Her flow improved and now someone screamed over it.

" _Please don't kill Xelloss_!" Panic, some indignation and a touch of despair like only Filia could.

"~ _I swear, if you keep haunting me from the grave, I'm going to hell just to kick your ass._ ~"

" _For goodness sake, miss Luna. I am no more dead than I am dating Xelloss. We had a cat's cradle of a scheme that would've gone much easier if certain people hadn't locked us out of Elmegiddo. Now stop trying to kill him!"_

This was either elaborate haunting, or that explained why Valganigdu just came barreling back to attack random people at sea.

"~ _Just to be clear, what was the big angry mutaty red blob that just tried to kill us?_ ~"

Another telepathic voice tuned in, probably Ragrairyos. "~ _Valgarv ate the talisman and merged with one of the hosts. We have the other one contained and the tower secured, this one is now out for vengeance. It targets both you and Xelloss. Be careful.~"_

" _~Wonderful. I guess I'm gonna pick up the litter. Teleport in whenever, explanation later. ~_ "

Xelloss had kept at a distance now, weary of her. Luna made a peace sign first, then shot over, grabbing him along.

Ragrairyos was back and apparently sane, so Luna was ready to risk the surface.

Xelloss caught on and locked his arm up hers, letting himself be pulled. They broke the surface into the hot air.

Vrabazard had left the entire area covered with steam. Where was the island?

"Xelloss, where—"

The water exploded below them. Luna barreled to her left, but it followed right after them, shredding the steam's cover.

No sight of helpful gods, she had no idea where the island was. Xelloss tightened his grip and tried pulling her entirely onto the astral plane. Failing that, he warped space. They reappeared a little further in the steam, just enough for Luna to breathe again.

Barely could she looked around, or their enemy solidified around them in a mess of rotting flesh and black feathers. It reminded her too much of herself.

Before she knew it, Xelloss had vanished. Her flow broke and the first trickle of unwanted emotions came. She latched onto the rage, anything better than fear.

Valgarv reformed before her again. "Thought you'd get away?"

Don't be afraid, help would come soon. She found her grip on anger and better yet, her reasoning. "I though you only went for me cause I was here. Shouldn't you be fleeing from Vrabazard and the gods, or something?"

"No, I have other business. She ruined everything," Valgarv said. "So now I'm going to ruin her."

"Are we talking about Lina, Filia, Claire or Lucifer?" Luna asked, voice steadying. "It's hard to tell with your arbitrary blame code."

He paused before he said, "All of them, and you."

The more power she used to keep her body shielded, the less she could dissolve all the feelings that would undo her. Nowhere to flow to. Fear could be many things, nails digging through nerves, knives through the throat, hooks anchoring the mind. Here and now, it was nothing but hooks He has a whole devil king to work on her holy sense, and she knew all the ways he was to be feared.

She needed something, anything. A weakness. She jammed a hand into the dark mass, sending out her own rotten holiness, trying to pry open a soul gate. Instead, she found a trace of holiness ... her own, that he'd stolen in Sailoon.

"What do you want?" she forced out, because he'd respond.

"In case I can't destroy your soul, I bet Filia will visit you in hell," he said. "You can pass this message for Lina : _Stars die, the world stagnates until nothing moves anymore. The game was never meant to last and this world is no exception. Lucifer wins in the end. You're the reason why._ And you can add for Filia that she's right about mothers dying all the time. She only lasted because she never was a real mother."

"Duly ignored," Luna said.

"Oh, you will pass it on," he said. "You're not good enough to spare anyone."

Claws grew from the walls all around. Just when they crashed down around her, she pulled back her stolen power through them. They broke apart and she shot at the nearest weakness. Cold seawater rushed in, working against her escape. The gap closed around her before she could get out.

No, she couldn't go down like this. Fear urged her to defend. She hardened her astral body into full dragon shape, pumped all energy into the skull and blasted ahead. The cold water reached her again, but the gap grew shut much swifter. Like sinking in slime, the devil pulled her back in.

All around her, power pressed down on her. She couldn't fire again even if she wanted to.

In the suffocating darkness, she didn't see the change, but she felt it. One dark thing cut through the other. Only when the dim blue light shone did the black lightning blade stand out.

It cut straight through the wall of flesh behind him, making way for a golden light and air. Luna didn't remember passing the surface.

An orange and magenta blur shot up past her, landing on blue dragon coils.

Lina landed next to her spouses, but for the life of her Luna had no idea what that thing on the astral plane was. Lina's astral body both blended in and stood out like she was the only thing that mattered. Both Luna's sight fell lost on her, shifting and weighing, unsure what all that ... nothing ... gold ... she could lose herself in it ...

"Hey, sister. Guess what? I went to see this world and four more. Am I enough of a wise adult for you now?"

Old mental reflexes tried to rile Luna up to hate that tone, to lash out at the insolence, but no emotion came to drive her. Just a vague amusement at how literal Lina had taken it. "So, how was it? Took souvenirs?"

That seemed to floor Lina for a good three seconds. "What's wrong with you, sis?"

Luna shrugged, pointing a claw at the red blob below them. "Bad dinner."

"Hey Lina, is that really your sister?" Naga said. "She doesn't look like you."

"Pretty sure," Lina said. "Unless the real Luna looked in a certain mirror. Who knows, maybe it can duplicate Siephied pieces."

"I get it now, that's why you and her don't get along!" Gourry said. "It must be hard living with a dragon sister when you repulse dragons so much."

"Gourry, you've met her before ..." Lina groaned. "She's just —"

An inhuman screech broke through the air. A glimmer of memory hit Luna — dying dragons sounded like this.

"Never mind. Let's go smite Valgarv for once and for all," Lina said.

"Hohohohohohohohooo! Indeed, and this time I will make sure you do it right!" Naga shouted as she flew by, straight at the core of the monster below.

"Naga, no!" Lina cried and forgot Luna with that.

"See ya later," Gourry told Luna with a smile, before jumping into the fray.

Well, that happened. Not only had Lina just casually saved her, she was apparently really the Apostle, and winning, and Luna had no control over anything.

"Xelloss is somewhere to our north, go fish him up," Ragrairyos said before dematerializing. A second later she threw herself at the monstrosity.

Grabbing Xelloss along while they were both down there was fine, but now she was in the cold air, the boiling sea didn't seem so appealing anymore. She had been skipping breathing rather long, she didn't want that to be a permanent thing. On the other side, she didn't want reigning in an irritated Zelas to be a permanent thing either. She'd be pissed off to learn Xelloss was on her side all along, only for him to die here.

So, she took a dive again.

Xelloss had run into trouble with the devil armies. While Dalphin was nowhere to be seen, Dynast was dumb enough to have stayed, yet bright enough to understand that Shabranigdu attacking Xelloss meant something. He hadn't caught him yet, but was very close.

Luna was only about Xelloss's power, there was no way she could defeat a devil monarch. Outsmarting them was another thing.

Her usual dragon projection was maybe twenty meters wide. With some effort, she blew that up to a hundred meter right as she dropped behind Dynast.

Tempting as saying _boo_ was, Luna kept it with a roar. Dynast spun around, staring right into the face of Siephied. He startled so hard that his projection faltered. Luna took his blind moment to shoot past and grab Xelloss. He's taken that same moment to blast away some devils in his path south.

Luna was just a little faster now he'd taken more damage, so she had to lead. Dropping full dragon form for her human self with wings and tentacles, she swam more than propelled. Xelloss held onto one of her tendrils and scared off lesser devils, but Dynast was soon on their trail.

Building power sent a shockwave; he prepared to fire. Luna struggled to the surface as fast as she could, but it took too long.

She needed help. Desperate for options, she cried out on the astral plane.

Right as the shredding power caught up with them, a massive force broke through the surface.

Rather than being torn, a golden glow surrounded them, followed by the rush of wind in her face.

A dragon's arm hooked around them, and she found herself on a dragon flying belly op.

A familiar snout bent over. "Thank goodness, you're alive!"

Filia, exactly as alive as she'd said.

"Wasn't goodness," Luna said. "Just me and the clown."

They were somewhere high in the sky, the peak of the island was just barely visible over the edge of Filia's wing.

Luna let go of Xelloss, he could lean against Filia's other arm. That movement revealed his damage.

"What happened? Miss Luna, did you—"

"Hey, he was like this when I got there," Luna said, patting him on the edge of a cut off shoulder. "Other than the arm, I took that off."

The look Filia gave her prompted her to add, " _Before_ your message, which you have yet to explain. Especially _that_." She pointed at the battle behind them.

"Xelloss and I conspired so we could fool Dalphin so we could kidnap Valgarv and rewrite him with miss Lina." It sounded rehearsed. "We had success. He came here, opened the portal and miss Lina returned, but he got away."

"Oh, I get it now. It all makes sense. I finally rediscovered out how to be properly drunk and I'm in a wine cellar, dreaming," Luna said. It wasn't entirely a mock.

"I'd send the memories to you, but I can't reach you properly," Filia said. "Something clutters your soul gate."

Xelloss snapped his fingers for attention, then traced letters on Filia's neck.

"What? He says you're possessed by Zelas's power," Filia said. "That's why you're leaking darkness? What on earth were you thinking, striking a pledge with her?"

"I don't think I did, I just ... oh."

Xelloss had pulled something away before. The leash had been invisible this time.

A low, double roar thundered through them.

The struggle drew nearer to the island. The devil king's power had half woken, its target the island again. A form almost like an ancient dragon grew out of a needlepoint, thrashing and empty on the astral plane. One last effort, but Lina cut through again. It left Shabranigdu visible only for a glimpse before the coils of the Aqualord blocked it from sight. The water swallowed them right after.

Watching epic battles from the sidelines made them rather less epic, but they drew attention.

Vrabazard rushed closer, boiling the waters in his efforts to burn the remaining devils. Now he had a new target.

"Filia, let's do something about Vrabazard," Luna said.

"Right," Filia said, careened right at the burning god. Xelloss didn't feel confident about that, but couldn't complain. Whatever spell blocked his speech was a godsend.

Filia flew straight at the god, who slowed his approach. The once smooth head had been reduced to half a writhing mass, now growing serpents of fire and shell.

Even so ill, he towered over them like they couldn't matter less. If he recognized them was unsure, but the burst of fire he threatened to shoot at them made it clear he saw enemies. Filia just barely teleported out of the way.

They reappeared right above his head, tumbling down at him.

Filia transformed and held her hand out to Xelloss, who lend her darkness for a shield. Just in time, as the flames encased them.

They landed on the dragon's head, where Luna lodged her wings and spikes into the hard scales. Filia stamped her foot down, testing before she opened a life law circle. Without ceremony, Luna stuck her hand down, held the circle in place and found the traces of the godly voice. Cue for Filia to close her eyes and focus.

Luna should have noticed more of what transpired between the god and the dragon. Last time she had been close to a god memories had poured out, now nothing happened. Most she could tell was that Vrabazard abruptly stopped trashing when Filia cringed.

The fire around them lessened, but not due to peace yet. Vrabazard now had something to rage at, right at it. Luna only felt a trickle of it. Seething, whispers, tearing. Vrabazard knew Luna had cursed him, and knew his priestess of before. He wanted answers, blocked from the world by Luna's and Lyos poison so he pushed at Filia.

Filia stifled a scream. In response to Xelloss's alarmed look, Luna said, "He's trying to read our minds. Don't worry."

Well, our wasn't quite right. Vrabazard couldn't get into Luna's mind due to the dark pollution. Block out gods was really easy, it turned out, if you were willing to swallow some poison. The flip side was being blind to a lot. All she could tell of the conversation was Filia shifting through a range of emotions.

When Vrabazard calmed, the fire vanished and Filia relaxed. That didn't last long. Vrabazard spun away to join the struggle with Valganigdu.

With a last ditch, Filia teleported them to the island. Along with the golden glow, she dropped her dragon form.

The cold and silence hit Luna like a brick. It sunk in. Filia wasn't dead, they weren't about to lose the war, the island was in their control. Her day was actually much better than she had assumed.

Her lungs were also filled with water. She buckled over, coughing until it was all out. Filia's hand hit her on the back a few times.

Luna let her forehead rest against the grains of sand and took in the sound of waves. Tremors of the battle strung over the astral plane, but it was far enough to be safe. She looked up without needing to flee.

Filia sat at her side, one knee on the ground and one hand on Luna's back. "Do you need help healing?"

Luna shook her head.

Filia was a mess. Fading astral chains floated around her and the odd white and terracotta dress she wore had scorch marks, but that was nothing compared to her emotions. As immediate terror subsided, she had devastation left. Relief only barely stayed at the front.

Xelloss sat on her other side, leaning heavily on his arms. He was a mess too, but less so emotionally and more physically. Whether it was the closeness or not seeing him as enemy anymore, his injuries nauseated her now. Something about the way his otherwise so human self broke at the edges of the jaw into ragged black and green. Traces of a red curse lines everything.

Filia pushed him up a little and reached for the gaping wound, no doubt intent to try fixing it.

"Stop that." Filia froze as Zelas shifted before them. "You wouldn't know what to do."

Zelas shoved Filia aside with her leg, clearing the space to warp Xelloss away with her.

"Well, that was rude," Luna blurted. Her human voice was hoarse, so she said the next thing with projection. "I take she didn't like your plan."

"I'm sure it's the lecture I gave her. Among other things, I accused her of being a bad mother."

Luna gave her a thumbs up. "Saves me the trouble."

"Well, I better get to work. I'm pretty sure we're winning, but that just means there's a lot of clean up to do.

That might be right. To battle to the north had moved back in the air.

Vrabazard and Ragrairyos retreated from their prey, but stayed at a certain distance of each other. Between them was a glowing red point, shielded by projected wings. Together they carried it to the island, where the water moved in a vortex near the shore.

Lina stood atop of Ragrairyos's head like she would on an animal mount, while her wife had taken a similar position on the other god. Gourry hung off a tail fin, complaining about everyone but him being able to fly.

All the while that the gods and Lina casting a complex spell to keep the host alive and contained in the water, Filia refused to look. She healed injuries of her own, then did the same of the surviving soldiers who made it to the shore. Jillas appeared at one point, met up with her and cried. He got a hug, and did go to the sealed host, but said nothing.

After a while, Filia even managed to force smiles for those she helped.

Luna did her own healing, which wasn't as easy as it should be. She didn't so much restore herself as patch up — now she really felt being drenched with devil energy. Maybe she should have accepted help, but she didn't really want anyone meddling anymore with her soul.

It wouldn't hurt to be somewhere warmer though. Not wanting to navigate the tunnels, she just climbed up the broken walls and sat against the rock there. It still had the heat of whatever had busted it, and the divine magic in the stone could be leeched on.

Having nowhere else to go, Luna stayed there.

Eventually Lina came in, heard before she was seen.

"Now, we're going to make sure the white deities send me all my loot," Lina declared. "Before Volphied figures out how to take over the connection."

" _Our_ loot," Naga shouted.

" _I'm_ the Chosen One. They gave it to me, deities to apostle!"

"Don't you dare, Lina! It was a team effort!"

"What was?" Gourry eloquently put in.

It went on like that. She didn't even notice Luna.

When Lina didn't pay attention to Luna, her behavior was so different. Cheerful, boasting, carefree, bickering with her lovers like life depended on it, and not a care for the mess she left in her trail. Luna had long resented her messy attitude, but now she only saw a weird kind of happiness.

**· · · · · · ·**

Post war clean up took a while. By evening Lina had gathered her loot (and had it registered as hers by Zephyria law), the holy tribes had rearranged their world view again (oh my, the apostle of chaos is so rude and tiny) and Zelas had regained her psychological footing (and so avoided Luna like the plague).

Naga on a megaphone announced a meeting in the central hall, for which the platform was fancied up as a stage. Lina called it a press conference, where she was to explain things and then people would be allowed to ask questions. She got herself a podium, which she shared with Gourry and contended with Naga, who wouldn't relinquish her megaphone.

Luna didn't join them in the hall, just stayed where she was. The echo carried sound and she could see quite well with projected eyes.

Even with the considerably more space occupying Naga next to her, Lina was the center without trying. Luna tried remembering whether she had always been that way, or whether it was an result of seeing whatever uncanny abomination she had become on the astral plane.

With boasting glee, Lina recounted her adventures. Luna had never really seen her talk about her stories, but it was a little like when she wrote letters to their parents.

Lina had visited another world through the Temple of Chronos, where she encountered a clone or brainwashed form of Xelloss. This one intended to destroy the world until his Red World memories were implanted, after which he had instantly sabotaged his own plan. That was enough for Lina to believe that Zelas and Xelloss meant it when they claimed to want to exist.

Three years ago, Zelas and Laust had tested Lina to see whether she really was an expression of Chaos, some sort of extension of the will of the Lord of Nightmares, or at least favored by her. Lina wouldn't talk about what happened during her casting of the Giga Slave exactly, but she had retained her memory this time, and regained that she had lost the prior time it overtook her. Lina was very secretive about that time too, until Gourry assumed she'd forgotten and explained it had been a make out session.

Lina desperately tried to kill that topic by breaching the miserable state of the Black World, which launched her into the worlds she had visited. Volphied and Dugradigdu still existed in a way in the Black World, albeit vastly reduced in power. Lina had only gotten one talisman here before being forced to move on. At the time she hadn't realized yet what Volphied was up to.

The Blue World was a bizarre dystopia covered in sparkles that Lina seemed eager to avoid talking about, probably because it was when the polyamorous romance took off. Clueless Gourry dropped a lot of embarrassing details and Naga pretending to have been on top of the game the entire time. Also, its Phied and Igdu were both despots. They'd failed to get blue talismans at all.

The White World was their brightest adventure, and silliest. A world with barely any magic, but a more or less benevolent duo of Phied and Igdu who had spread their magic out a lot. Lina had gotten both talismans here, but was tight lipped about the payment. Gourry and Naga were tight lipped too. Gourry just said he liked he'd been able to fly and Naga went on at length about how she'd been the queen of a vampire court and it was sad for her subjects to lose her, but alas, home had called.

All that done, Lina admitted that she had only taken Zelas's offer because she was curious about the other worlds. She hadn't put any stake in what back then, she had considered wild and ridiculous plans. Small things had first started to change her mind. The L theme naming for hosts of any power persisted across the worlds. The Phieds and Igdus told stories of other apostles and their strange effects. Cosmic destiny of fate had become plausible. All this Lina said in a clear and proud voice, but Luna recognized small twitches that betrayed her unease.

Contrary to that, Zelas was more at ease than Luna had ever seen her. She sat by in artistrocrat form in a divan she had brought, smoking and smirking the entire time. A more or less healed Xelloss sat crosslegged before her, mismatched as he sipped tea. With them were a flock of surviving pack members. Dilgear was among them, cheering along with the others when Lina confirmed the apostle thing.

It had to be good to hear for them, because Zelas had been grasping at straws before. To Luna everything still felt like straws, albeit the kind that can set the barn on fire.

Dragons and elves asking questions took almost as long as Lina's explanation. Part of this was her elaborate answers, part of it new ways to worry about the future. It devolved into the conflicting interests between the god clan and wolf pack, not helped by Valwin, Rangort and Ragrairyos all having different opinions.

Luna grew bored with it soon, but didn't have the inertia to do anything else.

Near the end, a small surprise happened. Xelloss shifted over to her.

"Looking swell there," Luna said. "Snackbar's down, unfortunately."

"I'm not here for snacks, actually," he said. "It seems we had a rather unfortunate misunderstanding and I would like to ascertain where we stand."

"So I wasn't supposed to understand you murdering my friend as you murdering my friend? Funny, I was given a different impression."

"Ah well, I suppose there were a few misunderstandings too much," he said. "My liege wasn't supposed to get an existential crisis out of this. It was quite unforseen."

"Y'do realize she's _terrified_ of the Lord of Nightmares, right?"

"We all are," Xelloss said, eyes opening. " _Don't_ use that name in vain."

Luna pressed her lips together, searching for the right word. "Maybe horrified is a better word. Anyway, that doesn't say anything about us. So you didn't actually kill her. I guess I could have taken five seconds to read what you scribbled in the sand. Shit happens. Let's never talk about it again."

"Yes, what would we talk about?" After a few uneasy seconds, he asked, "What was my liege like when we were gone?"

"Most of her time in aristrocrat mode, sometimes wolfing out to smash things, tortured a bunch of people without eating, and drifted around the machine's power cores a lot. Now for more important things. Did you and Filia really make out or was that a trick too?"

"A trick," Xelloss said, closing his eyes now.

"What about the closeted wild duck sex?"

It was amazing how quickly Xelloss could revert from serious to ridiculous.

"This really isn't all that important, now is it? Didn't we just agree not to talk about misunderstandings?"

"Ask my little sister how likely I am to drop anything," Luna said.

"I've heard stories, but I've also heard you're trying to not be like those stories anymore," he said. "Anyway, miss Filia said she'd like to speak to you. She'll be at your room soon."

That was something to do at least. Luna went to her room and didn't have to wait long.

Filia had changed into something more typical to her, both a dress and her expression. Almost her casual business day determination.

"Hello, miss Luna. Please follow me." She took Luna's arm and pulled her along.

"Filia, the hell you doing?"

"The hell says the woman who tied me to a chair for an intervention. Well, my reasons are better than yours : you are astrally poisoned. I'm going to get it out."

"By Zephyrian law, you are not allowed to force anyone into medical care against their will," Luna said, and quietly regretted having promised to try being not a total dick. It'd be so easy to twist her arm and leave. She was sure she could do something about the poisoning herself ... why hadn't she, anyway?

"Oh, I remember that rant. There's a caveat : if the person is somehow mentally impaired from making that decision, someone else has to. You are currently incapable of feeling fear for yourself and you're quasi-possessed by a demon lord."

"Okay, fine, bring on the exorcism."

That was a fair point, and Luna didn't feel like arguing. It'd be good for her goals if she was pure again.

Filia brought her to one of the shore caves, which required going through a long tunnel and two teleportation jumps.

This cave was partially flooded, but the rocks jutting from the water were large enough to sit on. Filia had already arranged for some cushions. Luna plopped down and let Filia do the work.

The water glowed ethereal blue as Filia brushed her tail over it. Circles spun open on the surface and above on the ceiling, illuminating the cave with holy nature. A little bit overflow, maybe. Then again, Luna couldn't tell what was needed for exorcism. She couldn't even tell how she herself stuck together.

Luna lay down on her stomach so she could run a hand through the water, pull at its magic while her wings manifested above her — it felt like a way to open up. Filia sat next to her and made a small noise of approval. Another holy circle opened, now between Luna's wings.

Filia hummed as she worked, a sad song that Luna couldn't place. She didn't see anything, but felt the touch of her fingers. Pull, cut, loosen. Swift, sharp, and cutting. Luna hated that she cringed.

"Sorry, I expected it to be more resilient," Filia said.

"How so? You ever did this before?"

Filia continued more carefully. "A few days ago with Xelloss. He wandered onto the dream plane and I had to untangle him. I'm using some things I learned from that so I don't have to cast indirect spells. Let me tell you, devils are made out of filth all the way through. As are you right now."

"Any reason we're alone here?" Luna asked.

"The sea's magic helps, but this cave is because I have to say something," Filia said.

"Okay, shoot."

"I'm sorry that I lied to you about our plot. If Rangort hadn't been trying to get into your mind, I would have told you in a beat."

"Apology accepted, and point acknowledged. You know, I bet I would have spent the entire time trying not to laugh my ass off."

It was okay because she didn't feel anger right now. She had no idea what her response would be if she hadn't. _Hey, trying to hide deicide while my friend here gets herself murdered by a demon because of some ridiculously convoluted scheme._ Not exactly every day matter.

"Still ... I chose on base of Rangort not being allowed to know, moreso than Zelas. Maybe we could have found a way to keep that god out, ... some excuse why we'd involve you and others in this scheme, yet won't let Rangort poke around in our heads. And now it turns out that miss Orun's been able to keep sensitive information from Valwin all along."

Still not angry. It amazed Luna how much room for extra thoughts there were now; Orun for example had years of experience with holy flow and mental identity because she and Lyos had prepared for someone trying to possess him again. Not something Luna would know how to do.

"Meh, I'll see about that once we fix Vrabazard. If it turns out you could've done better, you owe me."

"I'll prepare a contract," Filia said, more lightly than she felt. "Not that it will matter much. I'm probably wrong about you too. I've been wrong about everyone stronger than me."

Filia's magic faltered, she balled her fists and tried to clam down her conflict. Luna sat up and revealed her eyes. "Even Lina?"

"That's the worst. As I know miss Lina, she would never sell out anyone. Now she agrees to a plan that will see three gods sacrificed. Maybe she _would_ sacrifice you too."

"The gods don't care to live," Luna said. "They just care to preserve existence and that requires life. If there's a way to do that that involves them ceasing to exist, they would do it in a heartbeat. They just don't trust anyone but themselves to help the world. Lina doesn't sell out much, and myself ... ha, what's left of me anyway?"

"Miss Luna, I don't know you like this either."

"The other gods will murder us, and I might murder anyone in my way, there's murder all over the place. Why do you still care for little things like honesty?"

"Someone has to because it's one of the things that are needed for people to live together." Luna could practically hear all the cut off ex priestess rethoric behind it. Because the Most Venerable One says so. Because it is Right. She still wanted there to be a right in this world.

"Living together is overrated," Luna said. "Take that from someone who lived with an unbalanced devil for a few weeks, and we're not talking your clown here. I'm gonna bet you that Zelas created him to be so hard to anger _exactly_ cause she lost herself to anger a few times too many."

"I believe it," she said. "And I hope that you being his replacements won't last now."

Luna waved that off. "Don't worry about that. I don't have a Valgarv thing for her, I know she's filth."

"I'm glad to hear that, because it's best if you can leave her behind you."

"Really? That's it? Y'know he came after me to make you pay, right? That can't be all you have to say."

"It _is_ ," Filia said. "It has to be."

Luna shrugged. "Fine. The clown off limits too, or are you gonna explain what the hell happened?"

"It was all part of a scheme to fool Zelas so that—"

"Not that. I wanna how you're putting up with being the dog."

"What? No, it was my idea! I planned it extensively with miss Claire, mister Jillas and miss Leyunso before we even got him involved."

"So you chose to hand over control. What'd he do with it? Do I have to pry you off of another demon or what?"

"Honestly, you are in no position to complain! I am prying demonic energy out of your soul right now! Who's having a demon problem? Look, Xelloss was an asshole a few times, but he's good enough at keeping his exact word, so I gave him a washlist of demands. He's, well, put in an effort."

"Right. Great effort. How well did he do with, say, the brutal way I saw him kill you?"

"Badly! He decided in the middle of the thing that he didn't like the dialogue we planned. Can you believe it? We'd gone over it multiple times and he managed all the corny and ridiculous acts we did on the island, but _right then_ he tries to argue! While doing something as tacky as making it look like he ripped my heart out!"

Filia did an admirable job at sounding as casually offended as she would have under normal circumstances. However, the emotions surrounding her were those of mourning and loss and aimless, repressed anger.

All tactical reasons aside, Filia had nestled herself into a reason to suffer with this plot. Imagine a dragon asking the demon meant to kill her kind to please, murder her for a game. Who could tell whether she didn't ask to be killed one time too many? Not Filia. She might draw a line for Xelloss and even Valgarv now, but she was awful at drawing those lines for herself when it came to things that really mattered. Rather like how after a while, Luna didn't need to close the lines around Dilgear, he did it himself.

The kind of indignation, self directed or to others, that always bubbled up when anyone even seemed critical of Luna's action was missing now. That left Luna with a rather clear view of her own past actions. Life was full of lines, or rather laws, personalized to suit herself.

That had been intentional but never considered. Zelas might not have intended to domesticate Luna, but the results were the same : Luna's lines had been changed without her even seeing what was wrong. It might be so for Filia too, and Xelloss, well, he came with built in lines that bend at the whim of Zelas.

Luna sat up. "All jokes about the act aside, what are you to each other now?"

_(What am I in this world?)_

"Allies, for now."

"Right, and I'm having a stable relationship with the furball. Spill the truth, Filia. We're counting compromise today, and how much shits you give for your enemy, and which of your lines for others did he cross?"

"I don't know," she said, throwing up her hands. "He's still horrible. He treated it like bargaining, like business, when miss Amelia and the others asked for more intell _to save lives_ — it didn't even bother him. And yet, it's almost like he's genuinely considerate. What am I supposed to make of someone like that?"

Luna would say roll with it, but that's what Filia had been doing already. The real question was probably about some transcendental spiritual thing. Luna's answer to spirituality was that it could hike its fake ass to hell, but that wouldn't be the answer to Filia. Besides, Luna didn't wanna find out later some spiritual nonsense was the reason Filia was good at the magic stuff she'd just done, and come off looking like a fool.

Now, Luna did know plenty about every day power play.

She stuck up a finger and said, "Simple measurements are best. Draw lines, start small : are you safe from him? Whether that's stuff like killing you or ignoring the closed door."

_(Nobody's safe from Lucifer.)_

"Only for as long as our pact stands and he needs fusion magic for something," Filia said without missing a beat.

Luna snapped her fingers. "Good, so that's _temporary_ allies. Next one : how screwed are you when he becomes your enemy again?"

Filia didn't need to answer that, she poured out a most enticing mixture of poisons.

"You forgave him _again_ , didn't you?" she said. Without anger, all she could do was find it funny. "You moron. Once we start fighting over who gets to rule the world, Zelas won't hesitate to turn him against you."

"I'm ready for it."

"Are you also gonna be ready for _him being okay with it_? He'll be happy to serve her."

"Oh, I know that," Filia said, every bit of bitterness wrung from her voice. Like she's gone beyond acceptance and considered it a simple fact. "You know, we gave the false Val a soul. He was real at last, just so I could ask him to risk his life. He didn't make it, we couldn't risk Shabranigdu getting loose. If I can go through with that, then I can and I _will_ fight a devil if the world needs me to. I guess you're right. I'm not safe. For what it's worth, I have a few open cases with Zelas, nor did I forget that Xelloss didn't put in an effort until he had something to gain from it."

Holy hell. If _that_ was the cause of how Filia felt now, Luna was both wrong and right about Filia burying herself into suffering. She hadn't seen any tiny Val run around, so he hadn't made it. Valgarv's taunt about her not being a real mother made sense now; it wasn't rubbing in that she'd fallen for a trick, but that she'd failed to protect her child.

"Good," Luna said, because she didn't have anything better to say.

"And that goes for you too, miss Luna," she added softly.

Couldn't argue with that. A stone cold silence fell, which Luna let last.

The stars had moved along before Filia drew the last curse magic out of her soul.

"You know, you still owe me an explanation on how exactly you fooled me," Luna said once she sat up. "First though, I bet there's some devil armies up north that haven't gotten the message. How about I go kill them, then I'll get the juicy details."

"You should talk to your sister first, miss Luna."

"Nah. I don't think there's gonna be a good time for that soon, or later."

Filia didn't say anything, so Luna stood up and walked away. She was almost at the narrow path up when Filia spoke again.

"You know, I disappointed myself and you too."

Luna stopped walking. Filia still stood at the edge of the water, looking out at the sea. "When we first trapped him, I was in control. I was as sure as you were when you reached me. Val and Valgarv were two very different people to me and that made it easier, but when he arrived here ... he did something else. I had hope. For a moment I believed I should ask Lina to give that one a soul too. You know, with you and Xelloss and Zelas and unruly customers and wayward heroes, I'm at no loss for raging words. It never really happened with him. He got another chance to tear me down and I was the one apologizing in the end."

"That lead to your kid dying?"

"No. _If_ doing something different was the problem, I could work on myself. This was just my weakness with no point."

"I know that feeling," Luna said. "Come on, don't stay here alone. I bet you can help restoring Sailoon or something."

Filia didn't say anything, but she did follow.

_( It's not good enough. )_

**· · · · · · ·**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The events Lina refers to are in the manga Slayers Light Magic.


	43. Xelloss's Design

**· · · · · · ·**

Xelloss could drag some pride from his recovery rates because in the last ten years he had had more run ins with powerful enemies than in the millennium before. That did little to combat the sense of danger that now happily inhabited the backspace of his mind, competing with boredom for being the biggest nuisance. Unlike boredom, it couldn't be driven off with diversion here. No, it liked to plant little red flags over half the diversions, helped along by that newfound tendency to link his experiences to other people. This one here's a god, they can kill you easily and have reason to. And there one here is just a weak dragon, but they have connections or skills you don't and that could kill you. This one here is a mere human but you would be dead if she hadn't done earth magic at a specific time and location. His own liege, when she was emotional. The entirety of this island.

So when Xelloss shifted into the central hall and projected and there suddenly was a new person that he couldn't astrally see, a dozen flags got planted while the avatar of sensical danger did a ceremonial dance around said person.

"Xelloss, this is a projection of Mother Earth," Zelas said. "Be polite."

Ah. That explained that he would have passed over the astral plane's outline. He would have mistaken it for earthly energy.

Mother Earth had taken the form of a human woman with a sleepy expression, wrapped in scruff green clothing. Her hair was floor length and wavy, and where it merged into the floor seemed more a rockslide than hair. She spoke in a soft voice, "Allo."

"Hello, miss planet," he said, because what else could one say someone who one walked on every day?

In a circle around her were projections of the four gods, Zelas with her remaining lieutenants, Lina with her spouses, royalty from Sailoon and Taforashia, lords of elves and dragons. Milina and Orun stood with their respective gods. Uniform among the circle was a sense of weariness, a tinge of fear and a lot of anxiety, none of which seemed to affect the planet's avatar.

Lina herself stood at their center, a bright, dizzying golden point. The shadow of the Lord of Nightmares remained strong over her.

"I haven't had a chance to pay you my respects, Apostle of Chaos," he said, taking a knee before her, as befit one chosen by Lucifer. Assuming that meant anything.

Lina just bonked him on the head. "Are you kidding me, Xelloss? Cut it out."

He hadn't hoped any less than that — Lina Inverse was still Lina Inverse. Probably.

"He were just in the were just in the middle of discussing what we should name the island," Lina said. "You need to break a tie."

That got a collective groan from the group.

"What she means is that we are discussing strategy," Zelas said.

"Yeah that too, but we can settle the name much quicker. Xelloss, should it be Tel al-Metallium, Har Megiddo or Elmegiddo?"

"I do not know, nor care," he said, a beat too distracted with the circle of flags and ongoing cognitive screams to realize his liege might have a preference. Oops.

"Oh come on, we need a tie breaker. There's too much pass votes already."

"There is too much time wasted," Zelas said. "Why do you not just ask Megiddo itself, if you find this so desperate."

"That's a great idea!" Gourry said. "Oh, and we should ask the moon spirit too!"

Cue arguments over whether a moon spirit even existed. Xelloss used the chance to step out of attention and stand next to his liege. He took a closer look at the gathering, with one of the wolfpack lieutenants catching him up.

Rangort, Valwin and Vrabazard had no experience navigating the world using only mortal eyes. With Vrabazard lacking dragons and angels, he was relegating to patrolling the outer perimeter of the island. The Aqualord would divide time between assisting the northern lands and occasionally return to help fix the machine.

Until the machine was readjusted with Lina's new knowledge and Shabranigdu's pieces under control, the project was on hold. Lots of talk concerned everything but the outcome of that project, the one thing that had the biggest flag planted in its quaint metaphorical self and the one thing Xelloss didn't want to ask.

Amelia and Zelgadis really wanted Lina to come to Sailoon to help deal with the war, but she wouldn't leave the hosts or the island unattended. Xelloss already knew what was coming the moment she looked at him.

"Xelloss doesn't have anything to do, he can help you liberate Sailoon."

Before he got a word in, Amelia bounced up to him.

"It's so great to have you on the side of justice!" she thundered. Xelloss felt the abnormal need to hurl despite not having a stomach.

"I will never be a human, miss Amelia," he sputtered. "You know that."

"Who's talking about human? I stopped being one perfectly years ago, thanks to you. You don't need to be a human to be a good person! You're going to be the pinnacle of astral evolution, the lead example of the ability to change!"

"That's not really how evolution works," Zelgadis said somewhere.

Xelloss would have liked to latch onto that, maybe make a huge argument about etymology, but Amelia had put an arm around his shoulders. A dramatic finger at the sky, she declared, "Now that all pretenses have been shed and Zelas Metaliom has no more reason to be angry at you for heroics, we can look forward to days where you explore the delights of righteousness!"

Xelloss had the dreadful sense that she both wholly meant this and fully intended to get back at him.

"Princess Amelia, it would be _just_ of you to _stop_ torturing my priest." Zelas coated her words with ice.

"Oh, he's just unused to being righteous!" she beamed.

"He's never going to be a good person," Zelgadis grumbled.

"I'm not—" he started, and stopped. He had no idea what he was going to be. His eyes met Lina's, who gave him a curious look back. He didn't know what it meant.

"Xelloss, go help liberate Sailoon," Zelas said.

He couldn't suppress a groan. "Yes, my liege, but whyyyyy? I had close encounters with Valgarv, Shabranigdu and Dynast Grauscherrer, should I really be going to Sailoon?"

"A sign of good will," Zelas said. She didn't look or feel like she was into signs of good will.

"We're not going to feign to be good, are we?"

"We are currently doing the opposite of their version of bad, so we do not feign much. You may avoid the royals, but end anything invasion like either way," Zelas said before turning to Lina. "And you, lady Inverse, I would prefer you leave commanding my priest to me."

The extra sting in those last words was lost on anyone but Xelloss.

Lina shrugged. "Sure."

**· · · · · · ·**

Luna, Filia and Jillas were in the old work room, packing. Jillas chattered on about finally returning to Elena and the others, Luna cleaned up, and Filia had too much luggage already. If he hadn't been able to eat emotions he would have been fooled by her act, but the truth was that Filia just wrapped up her sorrow as baggage.

He knocked at the open door.

"Hello there. Neither of you were around for the good parts, or around at all." He cracked an eye open at Luna. A more thorough meeting between the sisters would have been very interesting to see.

"We had a heartfelt moment on the beach where I tearfully blessed your imminent marriage," Luna said. "I wish you two all the happiness in the soon to end world."

"Miss Luna, _please_. This is nothing to joke about."

"But you're terrible at jokes so we have to celebrate the one time you make a fantastic one," Luna said.

"Hmm, speaking of Inverse reactions, how do we keep miss Lina from finding out about the _specifics_ of our scheme?"

Filia mortified on the spot, then frantically stuffed a bundle of clothes in her fifth bag. "I hadn't thought of that. Good heavens, she'll never drop it!"

"Why don't _I_ tell her?" Luna said. "I'll promise to tell it in the most pragmatic and unsexy way possible. Even your infamous duck sex noises."

"No!" Xelloss and Filia yelled.

"Just kidding. I'm going with you to the shore. Have some countries to clean up," Luna said. "Taking it there's already plans for that?"

Xelloss nodded. "Unfortunately, I'm assigned to Sailoon."

"Aww. I'm so glad that you've talked things over and Zelas isn't angry at you anymore."

"My liege isn't ... " Hmm. He actually didn't know exactly how she felt about all this. That was one hell of a red flag.

**· · · · · · ·**

Rygoon hadn't become any nicer since the last time he'd been here. Xelloss got out first and had to wait a while before Filia emerged; dragon formed with passengers on her back.

He joined them by flying along, but at a distance so he could catch up with reports. One of the Wolfpack's few pure devils had taken the initiative to infiltrate the Sailoon invasion forces and now reported that most of devils left there were masses of low rank fools. A thick but weak shield. Dynast had spread rumors of a victorious defeat of the capital of justice, but he fact that the virtually intact Sailoon forces were later seen aiding in the war anyway put a dent in that.

Reclaiming Sailoon would benefit organization to drive out the devil forces, as well as prove what a chore it would be. There wasn't a single mighty overseer to defeat, just a mediocre one that Xelloss was sure could be handled by the Sailoon royalty, be it with magic or optimism. The more substantial issue was that almost all of the armies consisted of mindless lower rank enemies. Xelloss could defeat them with a pinky, but not without incinerating the city, farmlands and forests. It would have to happen the slow way.

When Filia crashed at the edge of Sailoon, she did the best job at pretending she was fine. Not that this was so hard when the others lay squashed under her.

"I admire your devotion to the art of landing. Truly touching," Luna said, while wiping away nonexistent tears. "You have me convinced you don't need any sleep at all."

Filia might have replied in dragon language, or that was just a pained groan. Xelloss saw a need to learn dragon language.

"One hour," Luna said. "If you're not back at the tree to sleep by then, I'm dragging you back on the tail of the Zephyrian health laws."

Jillas would locate their family, but Filia decided to locate random strangers to heal. Said that due to her superior link with the only flow ready god, it was her obvious duty.

When she flew off she avoided the east, where a group of other golden dragons worked. She didn't manage a straight line, or even the same air level.

Luna tapped her foot. "How long's she been awake?"

"Since yesterday. How well can you drag dragons?" Xelloss asked.

"Bet I can handle it now," he said, projecting a giant dragon claw to her leg. Some nearby Sailoon folk screamed and ran when they saw that, calling for reinforcements.

Luna pointed her thumb at them. "And that's why I'm going to work in the forest. Wanna come fulfill your Sailoon salvation orders there?"

"Are you inviting me for dinner?"

"Absolutely," Luna said. "See it as making up for earlier."

"For what?"

"My poor memory. I haven't the faintest bloody clue."

Smirking, she led the way into a sunny morning forest ripe with miasma and the occasional corpse.

Many devils had no positive emotions, _ever_. Not even the sadistic glee of the higher ranks. Incapable of anything positive, the itch to end the world drove them to take suicidal risks unless they were so weak they were under sway of a leader. A lot of the army here consisted of these, which explained why a mediocre devil was given the reigns. They had to be good at control.

For Xelloss, this meant one of the purest feasts, because pure devils meant no need to filter away anything positive. They couldn't even revel in destruction or torture executed well, let alone were they masochists. Quick, easy and sickeningly sweet, but also boring.

He killed most of them instantly, but a few more animated ones they took further into the hills, to avoid being seen by Sailoonians. That might result in a lecture about just treatment of prisoners, and who had time for that when you got your food from torture?

Luna introduced him to a few unique methods of her own. One involved peeling off astral layers, seeing power as wrapped around a soul. Devil souls didn't so much have walls as they were sticky, and Luna knew how to pull that apart as much as possible without outright destroying them. She also could use her holy powers tor each into their minds and mess with them somehow. He couldn't tell most of what she did, but it was both delicious and horrifying.

If it came to flags, Luna just earned herself another one. Xelloss had always known she could kill him and needed very little provocation to do it. When appropriate, he feared her. Facts and a reasonable response, but now it was more. A warning that he had to work to avoid that, and could do that by different actions than just toning down his obnoxious self. Given that she had ingenious ways to get to him, beyond simply killing, that was a need.

Luna was less amusing and well, abusive of those close to herself. His newfound mental flexibility kindly informed him he was dangerous in the same way to others, a factually pointless reminder. Was it going to be like this forever?

Just when he was in the middle of tearing up a middle class devil in such a way that it couldn't move anymore, but still think, Luna let it go.

The devil couldn't stop projecting quick enough and just rolled down the hill, bumping into trees. Luna staggered back on her feet.

Luna might be eating miasma again. Should he comment on it, warn her?

He killed the devil before it could get away, while Luna staggered aside until she dropped to her knees.

Opting to be safe, he asked, "Should you be picking off my plate, holy one?"

"So what if I am? I can still want that."

Hmm, this started to sound like something that could come to bite back later.

"Miss Filia isn't the only one who is ill, if she? Anything I can do?" he asked.

She looked at him like one would see a madman. "Don't fake, clown. I know something's behind it."

Well, yes, but he wasn't sure what it was. He didn't actually _feel_ bad for her in any way. Didn't suffer along or anything, but he did more or less understand and wanted it to stop. Maybe it was just bad experience with unstable holy beings,

"How about this : I'd like to know whether this is related to your quasi-possession by my liege the Beast Monarch."

"That's better." Luna chuckled. "I guess it is, but it's also you. You hurt Zelas for her goals. You know, I don't get why you're satisfied just serving someone like Zelas. She's godawful. I could only spent time near her because I'm full time channeling away all my negative emotions. How do you live with her?"

"It's my kind of natural," he said. "I was made to want to serve, how can I live without it?"

"Isn't it better to just control your own fate just a little?"

"I'm afraid that's a matter of identity and circumstances, so I don't care to get philosophical about it. I don't think you care either. You only asked about yourself, didn't you? Say, what would you do with this control of your fate?"

She frowned. "As much as I want it, I can't really imagine myself as I'd be if I'd never been the Knight of Siephied. I probably wouldn't be so confident about everything, but there are so many ways that could mean my life went differently. Would have met other people, made different decisions, had different expectations. Who am I?"

This would be a bad time to bring up Leyunso having similar curiosity, regardless of how interested he was in the response to that.

"It wouldn't really have been the same you, just a version of you," Xelloss said. "Most cakes have eggs and flour and sugar. They're not all the same cake."

"Still, if I see what's the same ... hey, Xelloss ... if you can cut and repaste Val and Valgarv, could you do the same with me? Would you?"

"No, I would not try. You're not trying to destroy the world or defy the Lord of Nightmares, so I don't find you objectionable." He was nearly done with his ice cream, she wasn't even a few bites in. She just stared at it. "Though perhaps I'd add some appreciation with good food."

"Hmm. You're useless."

**· · · · · · ·**

Once Sailoon was secure and Luna had moved on to making people work, Xelloss looked around for Filia. However, the entire district where her house lay had been evacuated. A few soldiers told him in Sailoon justice voice that they would very much prefer it if he went away. Devils hanging around would only unsettle both the Sailoon citizens and the many refugees.

He wasn't sure what he'd do if he found her anyway. Filia hadn't sought him out, and he could guess why. Val hadn't survived. Rumor among the dragons was that Valgarv had killed him or made her kill him, something to that effect. Not anything he could handle, but it felt like it should be.

He moved on to a small shrine in Dills, the same where he had stored all his junk before defecting. Having to no longer play mole, it was safe to take it back. The shrine had been abandoned, but his things remained. After stuffing it all back into his pocket dimension, he returned to Elmegiddo.

Most of the wolfpack had left, either to feed or as token of alliance. Dragons and elves had swarmed from the island at a rate higher than one would expect with their gods present, though he could imagine the gods were a disappointment. The only humans left were Orun and a few others of her tribe, who attempted to help Valwin reconnect with the flow. He thought he saw Milina pass by a hall, but wasn't interested enough to find out.

His curiosity lay with the Aqualord. She wasn't doing anything useful with herself, and she also could shed some light on what exactly had gotten Filia down so deep. The obvious of Val's death didn't explain the act of cheer and lack of mourning.

It took some asking around, but an angel eventually told him that the Aqualord was high in the tower. She had taken a room balcony that let view on both sides of the island.

Turned out she had company of Leyunso, who sat cross-legged on a couch doing little but watch.

The Aqualord had pulled all power together into the form of a child, who had curled up on a thick armchair. On her knees was an old tome, which she scribbled in without break. "Hello, Xelloss," she said without looking up. "Did you need something?"

Answers, but he already had a hunch he wouldn't get them.

"Hello ... What are you doing here?" Xelloss asked, the latter to Leyunso.

"Observing her." Leyunso stood up and left the room, closing the door behind her. The Aqualord didn't respond.

"When one is in a position like I am, relationships can save or kill. At first I only had a passing interest in the name of survival, but over time it has become fascination and now, a hobby," Leyunso whispered. "I cannot see into minds, so I must learn differently. Miss Claire interests me, you see, as she can turn off and on her personal attachments, or at least the feelings of it. I am curious in the name of extropy."

"Really? That's it? You are as old as the world and have lived as god and as human, yet it's just science to you?"

"Got me, beast priest. It's about me too. I started out not just with nature but also the effects of past nurture. I've done things most of my lives would not agree with because sometimes, I'm insane. Sometimes, I'm autistic. Sometimes, I'm born with a great inclination for temper and other times, I'm very serene. All of that carries along and shaped my astral self, which still exists in a way unlike the erasable mortals. Sometimes it is harder to hold onto the values I live by, sometimes I grew new ones, sometimes I discarded long held ideas. In linear mind terms I am is Siephied, but the personality that decides what I do would never have existed if I'd not been put back in the world like this. Identity is not a monolith. Tell me, who am I?"

"More than Red Dragon God Flare Dragon Siephied, though with a less redundant title," Xelloss said.

"Joke as you want, it's on your mind too." Leyunso's grin unsettled him. "Identity is already a lottery for organic creatures. People can drive themselves mad wondering, like Zelas did not so long ago. Will you follow her footsteps, or is your conflict over something else?"

He couldn't say there was no conflict, he realized. There was entirely too much, he realized. Zelas, Leyunso, the Lord of Nightmares, and Lina, all people who couldn't quite place. No master of the board gets anywhere without knowing the hands or the pieces.

Leyunso's all too knowing smile drove him up the wall. She leaned out a nearby window and pointed at the sea. From up here, the distorted water around one of the hosts of Shabranigdu could be seen. A twisted flower pulsing red on the astral plane, yet calm blue on the physical. Lina worked there on some barrier of sorts, if he had to guess. Zelas was on the shore

"They're testing the range of Shabranigdu's voice, see whether it matters that it's the real voice or Zelas just thinks it's real," Leyunso said. "Your standard security measures against someone else using your body to carry out their will. Speaking of that ... what's your range?"

"What?"

"Your limits to obeying Zelas Metaliom. How far away can you hear her voice?

"What does it matter?"

"Oh, it will matter if you find yourself not knowing what she'll do. Can you even tell whom she is?"

Chaos be damned, he could not. Zelas might have considered ending the world. That seemed reasonable enough if she felt that she was wrong, thus having only her natural devil instinct left. That wasn't what bothered him. It was the rumors that Luna might have held her back. She'd allowed her to cut down on her emotions, some of the angels had said.

If that was absurd to believe that Luna had held her back. More likely she had been a crutch, which bothered Xelloss. The great Beast Monarch Zelas Metaliom should not be so in need. She was stronger than any mind, she fought down even the instinct to end the world every day, did she not?

Did she?

Zelas didn't know Leyunso was Siephied and could not know. What did that mean when it came to whether or not she respected what the Lord of Nightmares appeared to wish? Did it matter if She never commanded, yet Her Wish was their command by virtue of creation?

"Why not ask her who she is?"

"Just to satisfy your curiosity? No, I won't."

"For yourself, too. Of course, you already know you are in no position to have deep conversations with your liege. You just obey. You can't learn anything. You're powerless."

This wasn't the kind of bait Xelloss usually had difficulty avoiding, but knowing the speaker was a god brought down to earth and having turned words to power ... well, that nagged just a little too much at his devil pride.

Besides, he probably should get an update on his orders anyway.

Zelas stood in the shadow of a rock formation, her human projection in traveler form. Keen eyes watched what Lina did on both planes, which currently was some sort of water shield that she directed with power from the Aqualord.

He couldn't be near Zelas without her noticing he had doubts.

"What is the matter, Xelloss?"

He had to tell her, yet didn't want to spill that the doubts were about here. He could only give a vague answer to compromise.

"I'm unsure whom we can trust."

"Much as I am. What do you think are our odds with the lady Lina Inverse? For one moment, she will hold sway over our lives. If she could destroy us somehow, would miss Filia let her?" Zelas whispered.

"I ... don't know. Miss Filia has always been someone who believes the end justifies the means. Now she is more extreme, I do not know for sure. She is as altruistic as ever, but her law or ethics don't mean much anymore."

"Well, that should prove interesting."

"I think ... " Oh, out with it. "My liege, is everything alright with you? What I heard of ... my absence ..."

"No," she growled. "We will proceed and _you_ do not need to worry about what I should understand for myself. It is not your concern how I fare, you have no place asking."

If he went on, she might just outright forbid him to bring it up. He stayed with her, standing in silence until Lina came floating over.

She was half wet, and her emotions were on the bright side. "You're done in Sailoon, Xelloss?"

"Yes, I am here for further orders from my liege the Beast Monarch."

"Okay, she can tell you for me that tonight we're gonna need fusion magic. I think I have a way to filter Shabranigdu's mind from pieces of his power."

"Really? Is it just Shabranigdu whom you intend to craft, or others too?" Xelloss asked on a whim. "I've recently learned just how much that can entail, I think we'd rather know a little more before we agree?"

"Oh really?" Lina's smirk bothered him more than it should. "You want to talk about _soul formation of wolves_?"

To Xelloss's utter surprise Zelas just got up and flew back to the island. Xelloss went after her.

"My liege, where are you going?"

"This conversation is going in directions that aren't important," she said. "I have better things to do."

That was too peculiar. Her sudden disinterest was too quick.

He hesitated to follow, then decided to turn back.

Lina still floated near the rock formation.

When he got back in her range, her emotions were a little anxious, but most of all confident. Lina's attitude had always been something he admired and was fascinated by, but now it unnerved him.

He began to see a pattern. Lina might just been immune to Leyunso, and at this point he would be willing to believe anyone had secret plots in motion.

"Did miss Leyunso talk to my liege three years ago?" He held his staff tighter, more out of a sense of defend himself than anything.

"Why don't you tell me?" Lina said.

"There are many ways to attack someone on the astral plane. Raw power, or words laced with intent. If your intent was not to tear down our power, but to change our mind, how could we tell the difference?" he asked.

Lina floated just a little higher, set her foot on the tip of his staff and let go of her flight magic. All her weight came down and forced him to the ground. He could land on his feet, but he couldn't lift his staff from here Lina had it pinned to the ground.

"So you admit you already did it?" Xelloss bit.

"Is that what you hear?"

"Yes."

"Let's say it's true, what are you going to do about it?" Lina leaned over. "Is it gonna depend on how much I was responsible for any change? 10%? 50? 90%? Or how about this? It turns out I just poked at potential. What then?"

"Why are you doing this, miss Lina? You were never the kind to meddle with worldly affairs unless you were forced to."

"Oh, at the start I really didn't have any intent to meddle. Now, I see I can't afford that. I'm not going to be a slave like you are. I'm not going to enslave anyone either, but I will use you as you have used me."

"The same we've always stood, I suppose." He jerked his staff free. "Though on a field we've not yet been on, and with a lot more red flags."

Lina stood straight and shrugged. "You're gonna have to live with it, Xelloss. We all do."

Now he noticed Leyunso, who had sat down high on another set of rocks. Lina got airborne again and flew over to her.

Xelloss couldn't imagine what this was all about, but it felt like he stood on the brink of losing every shred of choice.

**· · · · · · ·**


	44. Filia's Pact

**· · · · · · ·**

Knocking on her own house had a painful familiarity to it. Would it be like this from now on, always reminding herself that Val wouldn't be behind the door anymore?

Palu opened the door on a crack and yelped in excitement. "Mama, papa and Filia are here!"

Something clattered in the kitchen, followed by the door swinging open to reveal Elena. "Miss Filia! Are you alright?"

A pang of guilt ran hit her. She leaned down and embraced Elena, who softly returned it. Jillas and Palu joined in one the hug, but Filia didn't have enough arms when Molly came running up. Gravos came in from somewhere in the backyard, but stayed a step back to avoid the hugs.

Heavens, it felt good to meet her family like this. No knives dangling over her head at last, and for a moment they'd believe all was well.

"I'm sorry to have been so out of touch," Filia said. "There were a lot of things to do at the time, but I just ... I didn't want to bring any of that here. How are you all doing?"

"Oh, we had to do some renovations, but we're alright," Elena said. "Going by what Jillas hinted at, you'll have so much more to tell us. Come in already!"

When Filia stepped inside, past the customary protection barriers she'd installed upon arrival, she sensed and saw it. Approximately on the couch, Luna Inverse lay. Probably. There was no human form to see, just the indistinct mass of her astral body.

"What are you doing here, miss Luna?" Filia rounded the corner with her hands on her hips. "I expected you'd go back to the island and talk to Lina."

"Tired. Figured I'd sleep it off here. " She flapped her hand as a hello.

"Does that mean you picked up sleeping again? I'm glad."

Luna held up a finger. "Didn't say it worked."

Elena breathed out in relief. "Are you on good feet again? I was a little worried when she barged in here."

"Look, I have to hide _somewhere_ cause I attract enemy attention, okay? Your house has barriers."

"Not that you're not welcome here, but why didn't you go to your parents in Zephyria?" Filia said.

Palu chuckled. "Her parents actually came to Sailoon and she came hiding. Gravos actually complained about her busting the doors, she didn't even bother being angry about that! I bet they're scary parents."

Parents. That slammed Filia back into her own task.

"Right. Miss Elena, let's go ... " Filia almost suggested early cooking, but that wouldn't work with her badly healed hands. Not yet. Maybe she's learn to use them better later. "... make some tea. Is there still cake left?"

Elena made a dismissive motion and smiled. "Plenty. We have almost too much stock because I kept storing up."

They'd expected them to return sooner. How much time had even passed?

While Elena prepared tea and cut cake, Jillas told the kids about his new job at Elmegiddo and dodged questions about Val. Gravos started to be suspicious, and more somber, but didn't press.

Sailoon had been through renovations since the dragon invasion, they learned, and Zephyria had offered aid.

Elena noticed soon enough that Filia's hands were in poor shape and threw her a curious, worried look. Later, Filia mouthed.

It was an oddly quiet meal. In a way, Val had been the center of the family because he had drawn them together. Well, that had been Valgarv. If not for him, they'd be in three different places, probably worse off.

Yet every happy memory of the past seven years now had been tainted, knowing Valgarv had been here the entire time. Xelloss breaking in and making himself at home was disturbing enough as it was, and now she had to reconsider every private, unguarded moment. That he was dead now didn't make it any better.

Luna kept peering at her from under her bangs, especially when Filia dodged bringing up Val. It took seven of her looks and Molly outright asked three times before Filia could begin.

None of the words were right. She had avoided thinking about Val as much as possible during the entire operation, leaving her without preparation. She had to hide her eyes halfway through, but could no longer stop talking. Luna added her angle in a few times, calm and analytical and emotionless. That kept Filia from breaking down entirely.

"Val's not coming back?" Molly whispered at the end up the story. Elena just stared with wide, horrified eyes while Palu shifted in his seat.

"I don't get it," Palu muttered. "What's a program? Doesn't that just mean Val was real while Valgarv slept?"

"The one we knew as Val had no soul and will of his own, Palu," Filia said.

"Val never loved us?" Molly had the start of tears in her eyes. "He lied to me?"

"Valgarv did," Luna said. "Let's put it like this : Val was real enough that getting a soul got us a functional person who did love his mom."

Molly cried, of course and so Jillas broke down in tears again. In time, she'd accept it as her adoptive father had. Filia herself would see a day she didn't mourn anymore.

Knowing that had a cold tang to it — her life had revolved around her temple's dogma for so long, which had carried over even to her new life. She was atoning for the past, after all, by the same old laws of inheritance of sin. What was she going to do with herself once this was over?

Obvious answers existed. Go back and lead her business empire, tend to the rest of her family. They were not less important than that one child who she thought would be her redemption. So there was a hole now. She could live with that.

**· · · · · · ·**

Filia spent the rest of the day in contact with her company, operating through crystal balls and sometimes teleporting places. The war had affected several of her establishments, and ended up digging into the back up funds for repairs and for consolation services.

Palu hung around Filia's office, always asking whether he could do anything to help, while Elena busied herself with housework. They took it hard, but were the kind to keep themselves busy in the aftermath and not cry as much. Molly drew pictures in memoriam, which Jillas kept praising for accuracy. Gravos took it on himself to cook a huge meal.

Luna neither bothered nor comforted her. She was simply there. Once she went shopping and complained about how annoying it was when not using her power to intimidate people into obliging her.

At the end of the day Elena and Filia brought the kids to bed. Once the adult beast folk had retired too, Filia invited Luna for tea in the parlor. Well, tea and wine. Luna preferred classier food and drink, even as she dumped herself on the couch.

"You're still avoiding miss Lina," Filia said as she handed Luna her glasses.

"So what if I am?" Luna sat up to take them, stared and poured them both out. Before Filia could object, something invisible caught the liquid. Irritation turned to fascination as crystal manifested around the liquid.

"That's amazing! How did you do that?" she asked.

"I'm hopping onto the creativity bandwagon," Luna said. "It's just a projection."

"It's beautiful ... anyway, your sister. You really should talk to her about Siephied's power and your afterlife."

Luna took a few gulps and sank back on the couch, the projected crystal hovered near her.

"Miss Luna!"

"Chill. Don't you owe me some talking too? C'mon, the kids are gone. Tell me the juicy details of how you fooled us."

Filia gritted her teeth. "There. Are. No. Juicy. Details."

If it was up to Filia, she wouldn't talk about that part at all. After all that had happened, talking about foolish games was unbecoming.

"Come on, it'll be more fun than your storm crow spiel, right? Or is there something sinister going on after all?"

"No. With one exception, every time he scared me was part of the scheme."

"Okay, spill the scheme. You're embarrassed, that's gotta be better than mourning."

Luna's power pulled at her. Did it lessen the embarrassment, or was she compelled to obey? How much of this was wanting to feel better? Was it alright to feel better when grief was so young?

"You dragons have a mandatory no happiness thing after death?" Luna seemed almost genuinely curious.

"No." Filia pulled up her legs, nestling into the armchair. "Well, for starters, Xelloss's name starts with an x ..."

Fifteen less gloomy minutes later, Luna had pushed aside her bangs just to let Filia see her incredulous stare.

"Ducks. Ice cream. Sensory education. Right. ... So you're still a virgin?," Luna said. "Too bad?"

"Too bad? Why ever is that bad?"

"I was hoping you had tips for sez."

Filia whacked her on the head with a pillow before returning to poised tea drinking. "How positively vile, miss Luna," she said even as she had to stifle laughter.

"To my credit, I got close to calling you guys on it," Luna said. "Then I told myself you're might've bonded up being manipulative pricks. I wasn't too far off actually, except for the sex thing. Oh well. At least I didn't rewrite you."

"What do you mean?"

"I dunno. Maybe I did something while we dreamwalked."

"I don't think you could. At most, holiness compels dragons. Dreamwalking might make that stronger, but it doesn't really change us. Miss Luna, why did you think that?"

"Never mind, nothing important to say."

Filia put down her tea. "You clearly do have something to say. I've had too much problems from people being uncommunicative. Spit it out."

"Okay, fine. Here I got the mood up, yet you demand the angst. So you're getting it. I don't hate being Siephied's Knight, you know that. It's pretty chill, minus the obligatory cessation of existence. Till then at least. Anyway, I do know what I've been to others with that power at hand. I've spent most of my childhood toying with the life of my little sister, for experiments, punishment and sometimes just the power of it. I've brainwashed myself into not giving a shit and even now, I don't feel a damn thing. Maybe I'm afraid of that, but so what? At this point, I can't go to my sister and act like nothing happened. Now she's got a chance to cessate me much sooner and I don't even care. That's what's up."

Luna didn't appear to be talking to anyone in particular.

"I'm cutting away drive," Luna muttered on. "You know that little feeling that tells you to do something, and puts in motion the way to do it? It doesn't do anything. Emotions are actually just a small fragment of the mind. A very noticeable and motivating factor, but ... simple compared to the rest. It's a fuel more than the mechanism."

"Miss Luna, I wish you'd be more clear. What is this all about?"

"There's so many things in our minds. Like, the need to do something stands loose from whether you actually want it. And sometimes the only thing stopping the need is that you don't really know how to."

Was this about her attachment to Zelas? Lina? Dilgear?

Lina?

"Miss Luna, your sister can probably help you best with this."

"Pfffft. Aren't you avoiding her too? Not that my sister's one for longwinded debates, but this plot involves murdering gods. Didn't wanna talk to her about that?"

"We had a word before she took the stage," Filia said tightly. "At this point, there is no rolling back the plan. Zelas wouldn't let it happen."

"Would Lina?"

"I trust her to do the right thing." Maybe.

Luna laughed, its tone mocking. "If she wants to talk to me, let her come. I'm still here."

Filia didn't like the sound of that.

"Besides, aren't you avoiding talking to Xelloss?"

"That's entirely different, we've just got nothing to talk about."

"Really."

"Yes."

**· · · · · · ·**

Elmegiddo had livened up since Lina settled there, in the sense that she put everyone to work. Most of this was restoring the damage the machine sustained and upgrading it with her new knowledge, but other parts of the construction were more questionable. Those extra wings and smaller towers made the main tower look more like an overstated castle than was necessary, really.

Rangort and Valwin had both elected people to speak for them, Orun for the latter and a concealed monk for the former. Ragrairyos could use more indirect means for communication, but had appointed Azonge for ease. It surprised Filia that it wasn't Milgazia, but she didn't have the energy to ask. She was here for another job.

The two hosts of Shabranigdu were half awake and straining against their seals. Before they started any Götterdämmerung, Lina wanted it certain they would not awaken in the middle of power transfer. For that, she planned to divide and reassign the power into smaller pieces that didn't have Shabranigdu's mind in it, so she needed void and creation magic.

In other words, time for agreeing with Xelloss on things. Not that she'd have a hard time considering this a common goal, but her plan had been to avoid him as much as possible until the Götterdämmerung.

Filia took a few deep breaths before she stepped onto the beach.

Though it was evening, Valwin's artificial weather kept the sky alight in silvers and golds — no blue anywhere. Storms circled the island and a disc of stars, through which the silver dragon twisted. The astral plane's waves matched the elements, always chaotic near the discord of Siephied and Shabranigdu's ancient battle.

Zelas stood on a rocky shore on the moon's side. Where else but for the lady who took after werewolves and angels. Once Filia would have been affronted that such a wicked being could look so holy, but now it meant nothing.

Ragrairyos half hovered over her, the rest of her submerged into the sea. In full dragon form, she was large enough to dwarf Zelas.

Humans looked so small compared to them, but there was no missing Lina's presence. She stood on a rock closer to the caves, cape floating not in wind but building magic. Gourry sat somewhere to the side, polishing his sword, while Naga had fallen asleep.

Gourry noticed Filia before she noticed him. He waved and said, "Hey Filia. Took you long enough."

"I'm sorry, I had a lot to do. Accounting is a mess, we suffered losses in half our factories and there's all these trades that need to be renegotiated." Telling the family Val was dead. "So, are we ready yet?"

"Nah, Zelas and Ragrairyos are still working up a way to make Xelloss channel away Shabranigdu's energy in case something goes wrong. We don't want it to get redirected into the tower."

That meant waiting, which Filia absolutely did not want. Time had to be killed or she'd fret.

"Anything useful I can do in the meantime, miss Lina?"

"Yes. I heard some very interesting stories about how you got Xelloss planted as a mole. You actually fooled Zelas, no wonder you were so terse over that part of the plot."

Oh no. Here it came.

"So, duck noises and strawberry sauce?"

"Those were all miss Claire's idea, okay? Can we please not talk about this here?"

"Okay, how about something else I didn't hear about, like the way you got yourself repeatedly killed by Xelloss? Don't start on it being part of the plan, Filia. Not that I object you wanna use Xelloss for a plot, but are you sure you didn't take this too far?"

"What's done is done and it worked, so it doesn't matter," Filia muttered. "Now, I believe there's a devil king we have to destroy, isn't there?"

"Filia, this better not become a problem somewhere down the line."

"I've been handling my problems quite fine, actually. On that topic, I think you and miss Luna should talk. You'll find she may be less spiteful, and—"

"Or we don't talk about my demon sister anymore than you're gonna talk about your demons," Lina said. "Let me say this, I know what it's like to live with trauma without thinking it's a problem. Watch yourself, not just others."

"That's not unlike what miss Luna told me yesterday," Filia said. "Are you sure—"

"Gotta go, have a demon king to destroy." She brushed by. "Gourry, don't touch that!"

Gourry had wandered into the sea up to his elbow, right at the edge of the whirlpool in which the host lay sealed. He tried poking it, but Ragrairyos teleported him back on shore.

"Don't, you might wake the enemy," Ragrairyos said.

"I think he's already awake, just weird," Gourry said.

He was right in a certain way, according to Lina.

Under Valgarv's influence, the host bodies had been dissolved to the brink of souls, encased by a code of Volphied's making. What was left amounted to the principle of Lezo's soul jars. Ragrairyos held them in place in small alcoves of seawater, like she'd held Lyos. Before any power could be given to Zelas, Shabranigdu's mind had to be destroyed. Luke had already been experimenting in hell with cutting off small pieces and making them independent servants, but hadn't been able to make them disobedient from Shabranigdu.

Zelas's contribution was a strange craft that allowed her to put souls into plantlike encasings. When they grew into wombs on the branches, or seaweed in this case, Zelas could control how they felt. Basic neurochemistry, as she called it. Devils could possess weak minds, Filia remembered Lyos telling her.

Most of this went entirely over Filia's head. She considered asking Xelloss for explanation, but refrained.

"I fail to see the method of conversion," Zelas said once she ran out of things to do.

"I haven't tried it in this world yet, but there's Chaos Words that I think could work for us here," Lina said. "It'll allow me to direct the creative process of fusion magic."

"You did not say you would already be casting such magic now." To Filia it sounded like she held back an irritated growl.

"I had no idea what to expect from this mess Valgarv made of the host, so I wasn't sure. You're free to pass it and we can do things the hard way."

"You may try whatever you feel needs, Apostle of Chaos."

"Hmm, I don't really like that title, but you're free to call me Beautiful Brilliant Sorceress."

"I am also free to pass this, I presume," Zelas mumbled, but Lina paid her no more heed.

"Filia, Xelloss, get read to give me fusion magic."

Both took position behind Lina. Xelloss was unusually quiet, all he did was stare opened eyed at the spectacle Lina was on the astral plane. Maybe he could read things into it that were lost on Filia, because fascinated Xelloss was a rare sight indeed.

Wordless, they began to channel. Filia's resources were still limited as she could only draw on Ragrairyos, Xelloss matched her limits. Once they had a fair cloud over the cradle, Lina boosted her talismans first, then sat down on her rock. While her hands remained in forward casting position, her position was less about radiating power than shelter.

Her astral body flared in that strange gold as she cast an unknown spell. The cloud draw into her hands.

_"Radiance beyond the brightest star._

_Deeper than the deepest night._

_Oh, Lord of Light who shines like gold upon the Vessels of Void._

_I call upon thee, I swear myself to thee._

_GOLDEN SEA SLAVE!"_

Filia froze when Valgarv's words echoed in her memory. Lucifer's Slave. Was it a trick, or had something else been true too?

On the astral plane, Lina's gold spread across multiple layers. It enveloped the cradle until small black spots dripped out of it, into the water. Lina relaxed, but did not let go of the magic. It stayed all around her, from her hands to her feet into the rock and sea.

"That's not the right one, Lina," Gourry said. "I thought it was longer."

"I'm not using the complete one," Lina said. "Imperfect's good enough for this, I told you that already. How do you remember the spell, but _that_?"

"It's because when you—"

"Nevermind!" Lina shouted.

Before Gourry got another word in, Naga pulled at Gourry's hair. Apparently she'd not so much slept as laid back. "Let's let Lina focus now, we don't want anymore accident, right?"

Ragrairyos raised the black spots further. Lina took them one by one, enveloping them with gold before sending them to the beach. They formed a cluster at Zelas's feet.

Once Lina had crafted several dozen of these, she stopped.

"Okay, Zelas. Eat up."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Just treat it like separate energy, like when you create a minion of your own."

Zelas reluctantly picked up one of the spheres. It was easy to swallow and she continued much swifter. Once the last was in, Lina set a hand on the sand. From below her palm, a perfect life law circle unfolded, which faded to the astral plane quickly. Golden flares burst free there, brightening the plane until the horizon looked dim in comparison.

Zelas threw her head back and howled, her wings flaring in a circle before her. Out of her breath came dark mist, which spun into gold-tinted veins. _Now_ Filia saw the tree.

Devils dropped out of the branches in a multitude of animal forms. Some were humanoid, others more beastial. Each had traits of more than one creature, always something of a wolf and never a human head. A few were loops or cubes or other abstract shapes. Simple spirals could fell from the same core as complicated chimeran beasts. All were black, dark brown or dark purple, putting them in sharp contrast with Zelas's all around brightness.

After the last was breathed out, Zelas commanded them to kneel.

As one, the swarm shrouded the pale sand. Those without a distinct shape took on one.

"This gotta be confusing, right, Xelloss? Your little brother has so many bodies," Gourry said with a laugh.

"Huh?" Lina asked. "Little brother? I'm pretty sure I made multiple."

"They have no drive of their own," Zelas growled. "When I created Xelloss, he moved at once. The same rings true for incidental creations. If what your husband says is true, they may something else on our hands."

"Is that a problem?" Filia asked.

"If they resonate with Lei Magnus and he can steal them away, it shall be," Zelas said.

"Dammit. Is there any way we can find out what's really in there?" Lina asked.

"I will find out," Zelas said. "Give me some time to experiment."

Lina groaned. "You do that, I'm going to get dinner. Gourry, Naga, let's go."

While Lina took a moment to release the golden grip on her, Filia stepped up. "Miss Lina, about your sister—"

"No time, I'm exhausted. Food calls," Lina said. She flew off without casting a ray wing. Naga did cast it and carried along Gourry.

Zelas remained with the flock, giving them orders to speak about themselves and listening, while others she told to fetch things or perform certain magic. Whatever she concluded of it remained a mystery to Filia.

Zelas Metaliom was perhaps not her greatest enemy, but she had a hand in a lot that went wrong in her life. Her choices had been selfish and disregarded Filia and everyone else's agency. That affected even Xelloss, whose free will lay at the feet of her whims. She wondered how much Xelloss had been aware that the things he had once insulted her for could hit his home too? Selfish things.

She dismissed the idea of confronting her, be it over what she'd done to Filia, or what Filia might have contributed to in her break down. As much as part of her wanted the rage and the justice, she was too tired. So instead she walked back into the tower, sure to find work soon, or maybe take an hour of sleep.

Just as she was about to enter the caves, Xelloss manifested beside her. Gone was the trance like state, replaced by his usual obnoxious cheer.

"Do you want to see whether we can put woodchips in the food of Ospirias?"

She kept on walking.

"I bet we can work in a whole log in due time."

"Xelloss, stop," she said.

"Stop what?"

She made a vague gesture, unsure herself of what to define. "This ... this friendly thing. Our contract is over. You're only doing it because you're hoping I'll stay fun or to make me cooperate. You're muddling my resolve."

"Muddling it?" He sounded offended. "I act as I want, that's hardly muddling."

"We'll be enemies soon. Zelas said so herself, back in Kataart. If you have any respect for me, you'll stop this. Your mother got the message, follow it."

"The Beast Monarch is not my mother, nor is her behavior mine. The world works with certain people, like yourself, and I no longer need to hide what I appreciate. If I'm being more open to fun with you, it's only because you earned some respect."

Filia sneered. "Fun for you, not for me. I _am_ organic, Xelloss. _My_ life is a tower, not a road. It's worse to hurt people when we've been not entirely hateful before."

"Is that all? Whatever may happen during the ensuing power struggle, we don't need to play bloody, after all. I wouldn't mind to extend our little pact and its agreements beyond the end of the plan. By upping the ante of respect, I dare say we are much closer to a dignified foeship, are we not?"

"You'd have to be a decent person before you can be a dignified foe. _Please,_ Xelloss. You can't even project a regal priest's staff."

Rolling into the trap of treating Xelloss like a nuisance was so, so easy. For all his brutality, Xelloss's silliness was just as real. When that side was out, how could she not respond?

"Well, I'll have you know that this was a perfectly normal kind of staff a thousand years ago under the barrier. Not that you'd know anything about that. You were never that up to date with history."

So, so grating. She almost took the counter bait, but no. She couldn't let this go out of control.

"Yes, I wouldn't know because I have better things to do with my life than investigate out dated fashion, like survival. I'm not going to let my guard down again with bickering, Xelloss. You're dangerous, especially when the stakes are high."

He cracked on eye open. "Have you ever considered the same is true for me? You too have power that terrifies me. Why did you begin learning about soul gates anyway, miss Filia?"

"I'm sure you guessed already. You. When you nearly killed mister Milgazia, I thought I had to."

"So I've been told," Xelloss said. "Doesn't that makes us even? We could both do awful things to each other, that doesn't mean we _have_ to. Not anymore. Would you on a whim mess with my mind?"

"That won't matter if Zelas commands you! Nor does it make us even when you're so much more likely to abuse your power, when you already have, when you've been made to do that."

"There is _one_ choice I had to make about myself, miss Filia. My liege gave it to me and she does not regret it. Don't worry too much for what she might have me do to you."

"Do you know that, or just assume it? You've been wrong about her before."

"I suppose I have been." He got that rare apologetic look, a little sad. At times like this she wished she could eat emotions, but the world was as it was. Filia could only walk away with her uncertainty.

**· · · · · · ·**

Since Lina wanted to experiment more, Filia could spend the next day attending to her company, also known as distracting herself from grief and everything else. She could only do that for so long, so eventually she returned home.

After hopping across the station to Rygoon and from there to Sailoon, Filia was ready to spend the rest of the day attending to her company. She teleported right into her office and prepared to sit down when she felt it. A devil was nearby. The familiar tingle indicated Xelloss.

Rather than teleport down, she stomped down the stairs to make it clear she was pissed off.

Xelloss lay wide on her couch as if he belonged there, sipping tea and hogging the entire cookie can.

"What are _you_ doing here?" Filia snapped. Almost she added they had an agreement, but no. He'd say it didn't count anymore.

"Chill. I let the clown in cause he had a good enough reason. We're gonna fix your hands," Luna said out of nowhere. Filia startled, she hadn't sensed Luna at all.

"You're here?" she asked Luna, who just came down in the the kitchen.

Luna carried a pot of warm water and all the towels.

"Yep, still hiding. Doing a pretty good job too, judging from your response."

Luna kicked the coffee table aside and dumped the towels on the ground.

"What are you doing?"

"We're going to fix your hands," Luna said.

"What?"

"Break them like before, get you mid transformation, heal so it sticks to both your forms. Xelloss remembers how he broke your human hands, but getting just fixing that won't help the magic translation of forms. So how well do you think these towels hold blood?"

"What? No! Xelloss has done more than enough to me already! Why would I let him lay one more finger on me?" Filia crossed her arms, half to hide her hands. "Besides, you said so yourself. We'll be enemies again soon."

Xelloss did that thing where he scratched his cheek and looked all befuddled and innocent. Right now, Filia hated it. "Well, we're not enemies at the moment, are we?"

"What he said." Luna chuckled. "Might as well take advantage of it before shit goes down."

"This is no laughing matter, miss Luna. I've done enough fighting people who sat at my table, _forever_. Didn't you yourself tell me not to feel safe when I wasn't?"

"The thing with sinners and saints, they can both sit at tables," Xelloss said. "Till it's time to stand, no harm comes from what table they use, right?"

"If you wanna kick him out after your hands are fixed, we can do that. But you gotta admit, you're at an advantage if you're healthier, right? Elena took all the kids out, we got sound barriers so you can scream, and I grilled Xelloss on whether he understands anatomy — he does — so we're all set. What'd you say?"

She did want her hands back to normal, all things aside. Xelloss couldn't lie without being noticed.

"Will you sneak in anything that will hinder me in the future if you do this?" Filia asked him.

"No. I promise, no hidden strings or glue or tiny print."

"Alright." She sat down before the towels. "I'm not sure I can transform just my arms, so give me a moment to try."

To her surprise, it was easier to control. Being able to see energy flow on the astral plane told her things she'd only got a hint from before.

Xelloss sat down before her, holding out a hand.

With a warning glare, Filia laid her hand with the malgrown thumb in his. If he messed it up it would be the least loss.

"Here goes," Xelloss said with a smile. His fingers clenched. Filia remembered the dark hall and yellow eyes, but it didn't send her into panic anymore. She liked to think she had become braver, but more likely she had just become desensitized. She only had to bite back a scream of pain.

Xelloss loosened his grip and she pushed her form into dragon claw. When the yellow light was at mid strength, Xelloss once more pulled at her bones. This time she did scream.

When he let go, her hand had turned dragon entirely, full of pain but loose too. A few drops of blood went down, but five towels was overkill.

Healing began by help of Luna's holy flow and her own balance, taking the pain and stiffness away. Careful, she morphed her claw back into a human hand.

She turned it around, curled her fingers, unfolded her thumb, finding it all exactly as it should be. Perhaps even better.

"Ready for the other?"

This time it was easier; both the pain and the memories.

Luna handed Filia a string, Filia knew what for.

Osage Diamonds, Three Sunfish, Seven Stars. String figures was as easy as it should be. Heavens, she could do everything again. Pottery was back on the map. She couldn't stop the smile, even when it felt wrong to be happy about trivial things now.

"No thanks?" Xelloss asked.

"Don't be silly, you are just fixing your own damage," Filia said. She stuck out her tongue for good measure.

Falling into grim realities versus lighthearted moments began to feel like a tug-o-war. For now, Xelloss was firmly rooted on the sunny side and didn't look like he wanted to leave.

"What if _I_ became your enemy?" The question came so out of the blue, Filia did a double take on Luna.

"Why would _you_ be my enemy?"

"Just a thought exercise."

Xelloss cracked an eye open at Luna. "You and thought exercises? That's peculiar."

"The chairs gave out, I have got nothing else to want," Luna whispered with an odd grin. "You can do it with minds too, right, Filia? This all. Put it back together like we did with your hands. Put it back together better."

"If this is about Claire and Val, no," Filia said.

"Val was a program that preexisted and Claire was a godly fragment with personality. Miss Lina added souls. We haven't ever remade anything," Xelloss said. "Why? Is there something you'd have us do?"

"I just want to stop wanting something stupid." Luna dropped back on the couch, hands up. She made odd gestures to the ceiling, like she painted something with her fingers. "Give me a better will. Ragradia would have scorned at Ragrairyos, right? Just like Ragrairyos scorns at Ragradia and Claire? Would I think of me as useless when I change like that? Is that still me?"

"How unusually existential of you," Xelloss said. "Do you need a blow to the head?"

"Leyunso said she planted the seed in Zelas. Then there once was a Zelas who wanted to end the world with all her being. Was that the same one that almost existed when Xelloss backstabbed her, or not? Are these lost people in some other timeline that we would've been if not for some god getting into ours heads? Who would I have been?"

Luna had begun talking to herself. That wouldn't have worried Filia so much if she hadn't seen what a mess Luna's real self was.

Filia met Xelloss's wide open eyes; he too found something wrong.

When Xelloss wrapped his hand around his staff, Filia leaned over to Luna with sleep magic at hand.

Luna shot up and slapped her hand aside.

"Nothing to say, Filia. Go away," she said without looking at her.

Xelloss had stood up. "Miss Luna, I think you should come to Elmegiddo and let someone look at you."

Luna wings flared, passing through couch and walls without a scratch, but Filia and Xelloss were thrown back.

"You two remember me, okay? You weighed against it."

Filia scrambled back on her feet, just in time to see Xelloss try to grab her. She actually shot at him, hard enough that he had to shield and step back.

"What are you doing?" Xelloss snapped.

"What I want, Xelloss."

Luna's human form flickered out of view, leaving only her inhuman astral body. A golden glow enveloped it and she teleported away.

Flames and the stench of burned flesh remained in the air. In sheer horror, Filia stared for several seconds, before scrambling to where Luna had vanished.

"Was that another thing she learned while we weren't watching?" Xelloss asked.

"Not that I know of. Have you ever seen anything like this?"

"Not the deprojecting of body, but I did meet someone who acted weird and refused to talk to their loved ones. So did you."

The deja vu shouldn't be this strong — this was Luna, not Valgarv.

Right?

**· · · · · · ·**


	45. Luna's Menticide

**· · · · · · ·**

Rangort had returned the teleportation machine to the shore and had buttered it up with some elves. Luna teleported in just out of range, giving the impression she'd dropped by with other means. Didn't want to make anyone pull out a crystal ball and contact the wrong people, which would happen if she suddenly displayed magic everyone knew she didn't have the knowledge of.

"Hey. Turn on the machine," Luna said to the nearest operator that she found on lunch break. Off guard people were easiest to make comply.

"Who s- Oh. As you say, miss Luna," the elf said, jumping to her feet. "Give us a moment."

"Sure."

She didn't ask them to rush; rushed people made mistakes. That had been one of Valgarv's problems.

She waited, eyes fixed on the trail of feathers cluttering over the teleportation platform. They'd gone the opposite direction before, but now she formed the idea she had to obtain flow sight to teleport better, they pointed to the island.

At the trail's end, when she hated everything she did, she would be numb. She wanted that, could even imagine reasons why all too easily. She knew it made no sense at all, given her own wants and personality, to do this, yet she did want it.

Only one desire existed : remake the world in a better form, one that suits us. Let Volphied thrive.

Only one initiative existed : activate the machine in double mode, pull in gods and devils alike. Break their souls, fuse their power. Tear open the world at its seams.

She should just say one line. " _I'm possessed_." Or brainwashed or willwashed or anything like that.

She should do something else that made it clear something was wrong.

Anything but this calm procedure.

Once Filia and Xelloss came through, the operator would tell them she'd been acting weird. Hell, even Rangort's attention might be enough.

It didn't happen. She didn't _want_ to do anything else, even as the results terrified her. None of this made sense, she _knew_ it made no sense, but the initiation to do something else just never happened.

The elves finished tinkering with the controls. Luna took her place and within no time, she appeared on the arrival platform of Elmegiddo.

As far as she could sense, all potential threats were far. Valwin could be seen on the horizon and Rangort was gone. A nearby blue pillar indicated recent flow to Megiddo, so e had probably gone to hell. That left Ragrairyos, Lina and Zelas, whom she could avoid.

The feather trail led her down the known path to Leyunso's room.

At one point, it made an abrupt turn to the left and Luna followed it. Barely had she gone down that hall, or she heard the chatter of Lina behind her. Along with her spouses, Lina wandered by without a care, dropping a chicken bone on the floor after picking her teeth with it.

Part of her really wanted to kill Lina, but if one conflicting desire still existed, then it was how much that would get in the way of her greater goal. That she didn't feel any reason to kill Lina no longer mattered.

Everybody would die if she went through with this. She understood this, yet still wanted it. The push against killing her loved ones was strong enough to stay her hand when she stood across them, but when she didn't need to go through them, nothing was left.

Just do this one thing. Then this other thing. Step by step closer to utopia, even if that was a world that Luna would hate.

Siephied opened the door before Luna could knock.

"Hey, Siephied," Luna said. "Or Leyunso? Which are you really?"

She frowned. "What brings this on?"

"Existential musings."

"Who are _you_?" Leyunso took a step back and pulled the magic of the walls; she meant to seal the door.

Luna pushed in and closed the door behind her. "I'm Luna. Or does your power work one me now?"

Leyunso backed against the wall and dug her hand in the brittle sand wall. Almost she sent out some sort of signal, but Luna cut it off by digging her wing into the wall. Before Leyunso got another word in, she projected a muzzle — she was familiar enough with them to know what worked how, even on humans. She kept it invisible as a force, so none would see.

"We'll be taking a trip now," she said, taking her by the arm and dragging her along.

They made it to the platform with just a few odd looks, but once there she had to explain where she was taking a very unwilling Sage of Siephied.

Luna had zero experience with talking herself out of trouble (she could just threatened everyone), yet somehow the perfect words fell into her mind.

They weren't sure whether they could trust her, she told them. They'd take her to some place where they could determine her intentions, it was a test. Selling them the idea she was unreliable needed little seeding; Leyunso had done this herself every time she opened her mouth.

On the eastern shore station, she told them the same nonsense, then marched Leyunso into the nearest forest. There she took the muzzle off.

"Now you will help me navigate the flow. I want to pay someone a visit."

"Luna, let me into your mind. Something is wrong with you."

"There's been something wrong with me since I died when I was little."

"That's not it. You're hardly the only patched up Knight in history, nor the only one who cut into their own emotions. This is different."

Luna nodded, and found a hole where she could talk about it. "Ever since I got back the power Valgarv stole from me."

"He did _what_?"

Luna grinned. "And now I know how to carve open godly energy and rip out things. So convenient you're human now, you won't dissolve right away."

Volphied had given Valgarv the instructions of how to cast the particular life law circle on a god. Luna hadn't been aware of it at the time, but now the information was ready at hand. Leyunso was far from as ignorant as Luna had been, her soul gates were firmly shut. Still, Luna had one advantage. She controlled the Phied's raw power, and their soul key was near identical. Leyunso usually kept her soul gates open to perceive the world and had never needed to fear anyone getting in.

She spread out her wings and encased Leyunso in the ribcage of her astral body. She had exactly a split second of surprise to use before Leyunso realized and tried shutting her out. Too late.

Her mind, memories and feelings were full of a passive fascination with the world, doctored just to give herself something to do. Survival skills and tricks were interwoven, and experience, so much experience dominated it all. Luna could get lost within all this knowledge ... she just needed a bit of that power that allowed Leyunso to use the world's flow for scrying.

Something dropped the knowledge in her mind : Leyunso did not need to store anything with her mind. The world was practically her mind and she herself the flow point.

Leyunso was a lot better at this than anything Luna could handle. Well, that just left one option. Luna happened to be excellent at it : apply raw force.

She pushed her own power into Leyunso's mind and tried infecting her, blending minds. This very thing she had feared once, now it was her power to use and the only thing she liked about this whole mess.

Leyunso panicked and pushed Luna out, sending the infected piece along. She rammed her soul shut indefinitely. On reflex Luna tried to keep it open, but at this Leyunso was still the swifter learner.

The physical world became more real now they were unblended.

The late night sky, the sound of an owl nearby. Her own breathing. In all the time inside, Luna's body had not blinked. She had to blink away the unpleasant feeling.

Leyunso had dropped to the ground, but now stood up carefully. She said nothing, but her hatred spoke bookparts.

"Volphied, I saw you," Leyunso said. "What do you want?"

Luna ignored her, all her focus on sorting out her new addition.

With this small fragment of force and knowledge, Luna could just barely read the world, but she had what she needed : the information on how to teleport to the desert of destruction. The feather trail needed her to go there. In the original plan, Volphied would have wielded the god power and Valgarv the devil power. With either of them missing, there had to be new agents of order.

**· · · · · · ·**

The old base of Hellmaster Fibrizo lay east of Zephyria, far into the ingeniously misnamed desert of destruction.

They appeared a few meters above ground. When they dropped down, the slope send them rolling to the , Luna scrambled to her feet and shook out the sand in her clothes. Leyunso took a little longer.

The sky paled from the earliest dawn, showing only waves and waves of sand. With nothing to hold heat, the air was chill enough to turn breath into steam.

In other words, typical desert stuff. Sure, you'd die from heat once the day came, but there wasn't anything more destructive about it than elsewhere. One might speculate Fibrizo had demons running around once, but the astral plane was still now.

Only the trail of glowing white feathers moved, pointing her in the right direction. She wanted to follow it, but only slowly, because she did not like what she'd find at the end of it.

Leyunso put a hand on her shoulder, sending a jolt through her. She jumped away.

"What's the matter?"

Luna had been startled, if just a little. The feeling lingered longer than usual.

"Valgarv didn't get a personality transplant," Leyunso said. "He didn't need to. I can see you at work, Volphied. This one doesn't fit you well."

The accusation infuriated her, but she didn't want to respond. Just ... go. Get to the goal.

Luna started walking, pulling along Leyunso with a projected claw. After some prompting, Leyunso walked along on her own.

"Do you really want this, Luna?" Leyunso asked, only to be ignored again. "You... oh gods, you do. Volphied, you _are_ good at what you do."

She had to be eating her emotions. Luna didn't want that, at least, but she had no way to stop it unless she got rid of Leyunso now. It was too soon for that.

"What do you hope to achieve, Volphied?"

_Independence, naturally._

It was the first time Luna realized that yes, there was another person at the end of the line.

Valgarv had sought Luna's power in part to give shape to Volphied, but there had been no Volphied to reach in and he'd only embodied the program that existed for Valgarv to communicate with Volphied without shutting the Val program down. Useless on its own. Volphied still resided in the Black World, using her limited power to push through the walls of the world. Having Leyunso and a talisman shard helped, but most of all, that the gate had caused damage when Lina came through. Val had kept out Volphied, but she'd been able to sent a few spare codes in.

Valgarv and Volphied had expected her to take back the power he's stolen from her. That was all they had needed to plant their virus.

Volphied resonated far better with another godly creature than a mere dragon; with Luna it didn't matter whether or not her servant agreed. Now she had the equivalent of a beacon, rather than a general.

"She wants independence," Luna said. "So do I."

"After she carved out your original wants and wishes," Leyunso said. "Doesn't that bother you?"

Yes.

Yes it did. She just had no initiative to do anything against it. No true, fully formed wanting.

"I'm Luna," she said, only because she had always said this.

"The program—"

"Shut up!" Luna's power flared out, forming a skeletal dragon around her.

Not the usual one, it had the shape of a scorched toy.

Her familiar rage flared up, and this time it came with a host of other emotions that made it unpleasant. Anger ... about something. Discontent, confusion, disorientation, _it wasn't right. It had to stop being wrong._

Volphied was calm through it all, idly wondering how Siephied stuck together and regretting she had not gotten a closer look.

Oh gods, regret. Luna only knew what to name it because Volphied did. When consumed it was just foul, but experiencing it ...

She kept talking, just to distract herself. Anger alone didn't do it anymore.

"She wants to know what you are now, Siephied."

"I do not consider myself the same as that Siephied," Leyunso said. "I am one in sequence. Rescrambled content, if you will? Or call me a child who grew up."

_I will not accept that. Learn your own name and tell me again._

"Not a good answer," Luna said.

_Dugradigdu had enough hatred for his fate that he could choose to defy the Lord of Nightmares. We have choices, what did she choose?"_

"What did you choose?"

"I made ten thousand and more small choices that led to the one you find before yourself. How about you two try that? Become something else, someone that won't be plagued by herself. Go ahead. The choice to change is yours."

_Dares mean nothing to me. I suppose I could to change, but why? I have logic to lead me, and there is an objectivity to that. I want to be what I am, it is the world that needs to change._

Luna didn't relay that, just kept walking after the feathers.

"Let me in, Luna. If I can speak with her directly, I can alter her. I can help you learn to not act on those base wants. They're simple, we can undermine them with something stronger. Volphied's limited to her program, which she created for Val. She cannot take away the bonds you have, does she?"

Right now, Luna wanted nothing more than to snap that muzzle back in place, so she did exactly that. The rest of the trek was in silence.

The trail of feathers ended at a seal and a ruin.

Luna ran her hands over the magic, finding it demonic but not outright devilish. She broke through the seal and tore down the rock walls before them. Leyunso almost got out of range in her distraction, but Luna caught her just in time and dragged her back.

This place were clearly not built by humans. Just hollow places and corridors, once adorned with magic. No engravings or ornaments like typical to human ruins.

Strands of power were strung all over the place as alarm system, but it had been calculated from big and dangerous things. Lei was fairly sharp, to have figured out that old shields can be messed with by digging around. Broken threads in the wall rang a bell. Using her holy senses, Luna just avoided them. A devil or human might not have seen them, so he expected no divine enemies. Maybe he thought that if the gods showed up, he'd be dead either way.

Lei hadn't gone in very deep. One of the smaller chambers close to an hall with a draft had become his refuge. Always ready to leave.

On the physical plane the only noticeable sign of magic were a few corrupted Zenaffa armors huddled around an old divan. Lei slept on that divan _and_ on the astral plane. There was no more difference between the human soul and devil king, but she could guess that the human side dominated. See, there was an awful lot of human furniture here.

He'd either stolen it himself or made the armors fetch it, because ooh boy, what a mess. Aside of the divan, there was an iron hearth, comfortable chairs, table, a few books in a cabinet, and food remnants all over the place. Much of it over due.

Luna floated over quietly, stopping over the table before the divan. She wrinkled her nose at the smell of old food and unwashed human. Having lost the formal robes, Lei just wore a simple shirt and pants probably stolen from some farmer. His long hair had tangled up.

"Oh great lord of demons, thy hast become a couch potato. What woeful fate."

He startled awake, fixing wide eyes at her. Those were still a devil's.

"Luna Inverse?"

Luna hunched down in the table, tilting her head a little so she revealed one eye. "Exverse will do."

He slowly sat up. "What do you want?

Holding out her hand, she said, "My mind changed. Let's help each other take over the world, shall we?"

"What changed your mind?" he asked, more than a little suspicious.

"Noticed any of the chaos in the world lately? Big things are happening with Shabranigdu's hosts."

"I'm aware that something happened to two pieces of Shabranigdu. What's going on with the one that broke?"

"My sister and Zelas are experimenting on getting rid of Shabranigdu," Luna said. "Lina can force soul gates to open or something like that. Kind of a scary power, and I'm not sure I want her to be deciding the fate of the world. What changes is that I saw Her in my sister's soul. Have you ever seen Lucifer? Even just the trace of her?"

"I've seen her through distant eyes," he said. "I know she is dangerous."

"She is also ignorant and she is now the apostle of Lucifer. That's more than dangerous. You know all about things at the edge of your mind, don't you?"

Telling the man who sought to escape the parasite of his soul that she had her own parasite would be a bad idea.

"I conquered them, but I do remember. You're saying she's under the Lord of Nightmares's thrall?"

"Yeah, and Zelas is all fine with that. I'm not gonna let my fate in Lucifer's hands. When it comes to devils I know, Lucifer is at the very bottom."

Curiosity had a particular fun taste, but that alone wasn't an answer. He was also weary of her.

"How did you get in?"

"Holiness has perks. Don't worry, it's cause I'm smart, not because I have back up. If I was here to trap you, it'd have sprung while you still slept. So, what about it?"

"Answer all my questions, and we may get somewhere," he said after finding Luna untraced. "Starting with her presence?"

Leyunso had sat down one of the chairs on the opposite side of the table, making a point of glaring at them.

"Can't kill her or her soul's free to tell the wrong people, can't lock let her outside my astral body's range or she'll alert people. Got a friend who knows how her power works, I'm betting that if Leyunso gives her a vision that claims we could be anywhere but here, she'll get it. So she's not relevant to us, just a security measure."

"And to what end do you want to prevent her talking?"

So she told him about her newfound aspirations for world reformation, leaving out a few select details like Volphied being able to get into this world at the end, and the seeding plans. All he needed to know was the take over.

Lei's own plans were a little less ambitious than expected. He just wanted to survive and be free and planned to take over the other pieces of Shabranigdu, then sit back and advance magic. The gods being lazy, he saw no point in getting in conflict with them. Of course, he could be leaving out things just as Luna did.

As expected, he wanted a bargain. If he helped her take over the gods, she'd help him take over the devils.

He threw in some suggestions and shared knowledge of ancient magic, but not much, and he never outright accepted the arrangement. Testing her.

Luna held out her hand with a white flame in it. "If you want to be sure our goals align, why don't we fuse magic? Just think about what you want while you fuse, and see whether it becomes ... say, just a pyramid."

Lei brought out a dark flame of his own, not missing a beat. "I want to know whether we have the same goal."

"To assert our freedom and maybe rule the world if it's necessary. Anything better than what's going on now," Luna said.

Between their hands, it turned to a four point little pyramid. It could have been far better fusion magic if they had a more convergent goal, but he wouldn't know that. If he did, he might not press or she could just accuse him of holding something back.

At last, Lei smiled. "Get off the table. This is no way to deal with an equal partnership."

Bait taken. She dropped herself down on the open side of the divan.

"Alright, let me run you though our options. For starters, I've infected Vrabazard in a way that will make him obey me."

**· · · · · · ·**

Luna still had the tiny shard of the angelsblood talisman, which Filia had given her to contact Lina. It might not be much, but it would give Lei the edge he needed. She just had to take out the holiness, returning the fragment back to neutral. He could use to to contain Shabranigdu's power that way, a useful edge when it came to facing a fully aware piece of the devil king.

Lei's method of crafting talismans involved less of the usual wizardry. Now he was a chimera he needed no tools, only focus and magic. He went into a trance for this.

Trance ... something Luna had once deemed pointless spirituality, only useful for the most dense. She might just dislike that of her old self. For all her power, it got her little in a world where technique, gates and flow had just as much to say in the end game.

_See, Siephied, isn't it clear now? I'm not even in your world, yet I've killed thousands and am on the brink of tearing it down. Be happy that you are my ally now, for your will survive what I plan. You can learn and improve now you become free from your own limitations._

Given that this involved Volphied cutting parts off of her, it made no sense to believe what she said, but Luna really wanted to.

Doing what she wanted had always been so easy.

Was it?

_Don't worry for what I might do to you. I respected Valgarv as my ally, did I not? You too want to help me, I only cleared the way from some mortal concerns. The products of your imperfect life. Everything you want now has grown from fresh soil._

_You don't trust yourself with your own emotions — you wouldn't know anything about yourself. I could have written a copy of myself into you without you ever noticing, till I was you. Oh, if I'd known this before, it would have been so much easier._

_Then again, if you are no longer you, but me, there'd be no immunity to Siephied's curse. I'd hoped Valgarv would get it from taking your power, but no. It's only you and it makes no sense. The previous Knights weren't. Can you explain that about yourself?_

No.

_Maybe it is adaption._

_Give something a single impulse : continue to exist and the world will force it to develop all the traits it needs for this. Species and natural selection have brought them where they are. All these facets like love, hate, wrath, forgiveness, mercy, kindness, joy, sorrow, indifference, they work for generations. For life, for adaption and survival._

_The same is true for Siephied. You are but a facet of an old god, as wrung through a tiny part of the world in a shape it needed to survive. The power latched onto a human soul exactly because it sought to exist, so it, YOU, adopted the extra traits required for that._

_You hear Siephied and it is a name of a person to you, rather than a force. And just like humans, this force means nothing special when compared to any other lifeform. Only that your death rate means you have to live more wisely. And isn't that what drove you? Just so you'd get the same life span as others?_

_Just as I was driven to become this and adapted. I've seen what happened to those of our siblings to still remain. Would you like to hear what become of the Sun Dragon after she won? And what's happening right now in the the Amber Dragon's world? Valgarv understood already, and I'm sure it won't take long until you do too. This cruel game, whim of the Lord of Light._

A force shaping her, the products of her life.

_You could be immune for more than just Chaos's curse of Siephied. You could kill Lina Inverse, your world's apostle of chaos. Bring true order to the world, clean it all up now._

_Are you only attached to the apostle because of the product of genes? She happened to be born close to you but when it comes to emotions and personality, that makes her no more valuable than others. Choose your own values and treasures. We can have a choice, I know. A true, orderly choice, not tainted by the randomness of chaos in the form of genes and environment._

_If Lina is in our way, it may be by our law that she dies, right?_

_This world will not belong to Lucifer anymore._

**· · · · · · ·**

When they teleported to the southern area where the last piece of Shabranigdu was sealed, Luna was surprised to land in a quaint little forest meadow. Such a misfit for the prelude to the end of this world.

Two cats, a black and a white one, appeared from the undergrowth and spun around every leg they could reach; Lei's old trousers were used for claw practice.

Luna couldn't resist the urge to bend down and pet them, while Lei tried to shake them off.

"These aren't normal cats," he said while flinging one of them in a tree.

"Who cares?" Luna said, hoisting up the other in her arms. Heavens, cats were the best things Lucifer had ever dreamed up. She'd have cats in the new world, that was certain.

Lei looked around, confused. "I don't sense anything other these these pests. Are you sure we're in the right place?"

Luna nodded. "You don't sense anything because Leyunso's really damn good at flow control. See these trees? All holy shit. The cats too. They absorb everything negative and there's nothing bad to strengthen Shabranigdu."

The other cat returned from the tree unharmed, and Luna put it in Lei's arms. "Here, you'll need the happy fuzzies if you're going to face crabby igdu. By the way, our new world is going to have cats. That's not negotiable."

Confused he looked at the cat and then at Luna, who had her own cat in maximum cuddle phase. He looked like a man who hadn't been anything but a Wise Sage for too long and holding a cat was too much to ask. Not taking over the world, but cats? Hah.

"Y'know, you kept a lot of humanity. Well, organic nature anyway," he said.

"You say that like it's not so with you. Did that pillar really change you, or did Lei the human still exist?"

"I'm not sure. First the barrier around me slipped, allowing Shabranigdu movement but freezing my physical body. Then Shabranigdu was called away, forcing into the cracked power. My soul stayed in place. I stayed. Now we're one."

"Ah ... like creating a mozaic out of shards. It's a new thing from old pieces."

Lei had infected Shabranigdu, more likely. But there was nothing to say about that, because it might lead his thoughts the wrong way. Volphied knew what didn't need to be said.

The feather trail twirled into the forest edge, leading them to a small cave.

There, the cats jumped away and positioned themselves before the entrance. Luna cast an odd look at Leyunso, who walked behind them in eerie silence. The grass moved aside for her. She could ask for explanation about the cats, but she couldn't risk taking off the muzzle lest she speak to Lei.

Luna abruptly stopped wanting an explanation. It was so convenient to just stop wanting things, she didn't even need to cut away emotions for this.

"It's down there," Luna said. "I'll loosen the seal from the outside."

She climbed up a tall rock, which served as one of the magical anchors of the seal. The whole site had been constructed in the same trend as a soul jar, albeit a crude rushed prototype. Like a soul jar through its clay, it relied on Mother Earth for additional support.

Lei took out the red shard, now ready for him to use. Tied around it was a single small thread infused with fusion magic, meant to help unseal the old barrier. If all went well, Lei could claim the host's half awakened power in the way Valgarv had claimed his two.

The shard responded with pulsing red light. Lei braced himself the way only humans do. He took one careful step after another to the entrance.

"You cannot help me in this," Lei said. "At least, until it goes wrong."

"I'm sure we'll agree hard on getting out of here safely if that happens," Luna said with a smirk. "I'll keep teleportation ready in case you come running out."

Lei nodded at her, a hint of gratefulness in his emotions. How silly.

When he had disappeared into the cave, Luna took off Leyunso's muzzle.

"If he gets it to work, we'll be on our way to Elmegiddo. By then we'd like Rangort to show up, so I'll kill you soon. Any preferences on how?"

Leyunso raised an eyebrow. "How about not?"

"But I really want to," Luna said. "Come on, be happy you get a choice."

"I can't argue with Volphied, then," she said. "Just smash my head. The quicker the brain's gone, the quicker I'm dead."

"Got it," Luna said with a shrug. "Wanna argue with me, though? Or just talk? I'd like to know what you did to change Zelas."

"She was already suspecible to change, I just gave her a nudge," Leyunso said. She climbed on the rock aside of Luna, crossing her legs. "Are you sure this is the last you want to hear?"

"Yes. I'm okay like this, it's just ... Volphied doesn't know everything either."

Leyunso laced her fingers. She had milleniums of experience with suppressing anxiety and managed with only marginal cutting of her own emotions.

"Zelas Metaliom, it wasn't far from here that we met. We both tracked a host for Shabranigdu on the verge of waking.

She meant to kill me, of course, but she was always intellectually inclined. I earned her curiosity for long enough to live and tell her that Lucifer wants the world to be destroyed.

Imagine what my power does to an astral creature, made out of pure mind, when I rewrite them so their own instincts cannot be trusted? Some will find reasons to ignore their feelings, and others will be caught in a limbo. Many terminate themselves, but Zelas ... Zelas is one of the few to come out of it with the idea that the Lord of Nightmares has made up her mind to let the world exist.

She'd been seeking evidence to support that belief ever since. I've told her I am Siephied right away, so I would not be her evidence. I think ... I wanted to see how far she'd come on her own, but who knows? Maybe Lucifer sent me back to be the kind of person to make that choice, or maybe the world itself conspired to develop me like that. That you got this far on Volphied's behalf makes a strong case for us still having free will, if if the vessel is ironic. You have none of your own will left."

"I don't think so." Luna or Volphied said, she herself could not tell anymore. "I think She must do somehow. Isn't it funny how all the names of those that host part of a greater power begins with an L? Luke, Lei, Leyunso, Lina, Luna, Laust, Lyos. We all speak the same languages across the worlds. Somehow they just evolve exactly alike. Even as languages evolve or get worn down, it's the same everywhere. Why? Because we're not real, are we? Just figments of Her imagination. Did you know your name in the new languages, right now? It sounds like Sea Feed. You, the one who fed herself to the Sea of Chaos? And Volphied, who revolves and desolves and evolves."

"We're all feeds, though," Leyunso said. "In Vol's world, a feed is an observable stream of information. Maybe I'm the feedback from the Sea of Chaos. That's hardly a message about my destiny and more that She just dreamed me up to be closer to Her."

"Does it matter? We are all slave to the dream. Even right now, it might just be that I'm running along a predestined scheme, but I can do nothing but want out, so I go along anyway. If there is no chance, if i was made, then at least I'll run to my end."

"That is Volphied talking, isn't it?"

"And if we don't end, well, there's nothing wrong with taking over from someone like Lucifer, is there? Still ... I think I'm sorry. Am I? I don't really know what it feels like."

"Yes, you do. That's why your astral body got so good at cutting it away. If you wanted to do something with that, I could still help. Gods do not regret well, it's one advantage you may still have over Volphied."

"No."

Everything at peace now, there were no more reasons to postpone, no more chances to plant any seeds. The hope had existed that maybe Filia could wander into her dreams and remove this virus. She didn't actually want it though. All she wanted was the reformation of the world, even if it was will fit for her. Luna just wanted her own life, but it looked like that was impossible unless she made some great changes to the world.

Leyunso died quicker than anyone she'd ever killed before.

**· · · · · · ·**


	46. Milgazia's Worst

**· · · · · · ·**

As any nation did, dragons had stories about the tragedy of fallen kin. The art of tragedy wasn't just an art to dragons, it was lesson and virtue and purpose. Not faith. Dragons did not need faith, they had seen the gods and knew their law from their own voice. Even at the death of their god, they had known what to do.

Last year, he wouldn't have blinked at someone claiming the gods were amoral. He might not like it, but understood how that was an issue to humans. One might as well throw god and devil together, see what happened. The universe was a joke worse than anything Milgazia could tell.

He wanted to be as far from that joke as possible, so he had holed up in the shore station. When Rangort had restored it, he'd taken advantage of the room reformation to claim one as an office to hole up in.

How long he was there he didn't know. There was no window, he didn't need to eat yet, and the only interval was whenever someone came to ask something.

Today that was Azonge, requesting help with finding the lost Knight of Siephied. She had run off under peculiar circumstances and taken the Sage of Siephied.

"You don't need me for this."

Azonge hunched down besides the chair. "Milgazia, old friend, you can't let yourself waste away here."

"Surely there are better people for a search party, like the apostle of chaos."

"Lina Inverse and her cronies want stay close to the machine and keep working," Azonge said, half a snarl.

"So we're doing the leftover work," Milgazia said. "I see."

"Okay, enough." Azonge hauled Milgazia up by the shoulder. "You need to do something now or you'll drown in this ... whatever is."

He let himself he pulled outside the station while Azonge babbled on. There, where a group had gathered around the spot Luna had last been seen.

Milgazia might have pulled it off for the sake of Azonge and Memphis, but it turned out Xelloss was part of the search too. He was probably here to harass Filia some more, which was exactly what went down the moment he arrived.

At a distance from the rest of the search party, they quietly argued.

"I _will_ get used to this, you know," she said, her nose sticking up and turned away. "But sure, use up all your ammo."

"I'm sure with the way you are, I'll get new ammo in no time," he said.

This is what the War of the Devil's Descent had come to. A devil and a dragon walk into a bar had once been the lowest kind of joke, because everyone understood this could only mean sin and death. And then Xelloss and Filia had the nerve to happen, and keep happening, even after Xelloss had, ... no, she had _invited him_ to go full out dragon slayer on her, only to get back to their ridiculous game.

She either did not care or was oblivious to how this looked like to the dragon clans. The revelation that all of their romance was just an act did not make it any less kinder. If anything, it was worse. Ragrairyos had told the clans that they weren't lovers and had never been, and it would royally irritate her if the mood was fouled with further gossip.

But see, that was the problem. How to gossip now? They could believe that Filia had fallen victim to the machinations of an older devil. Such things were warned against in old myths and cautionary tales.

What tale did they have to explain a dragon intellectually seducing a devil into playing everyone, the devil's master included? To boot, with a god sitting by endorsing it. Gods just did what was most practical. Maybe it'd be practical to leave the dragons behind one day. It was already happening.

The eastern dragons, all dead. The southern dragons, nameless faith militia. The western dragons, under the wing of a dictator.

Vrabazard, a maddened monster without his sight. Valwin, now relying on a simple human for guidance. Rangort, life, strict, efficient.

In the middle of this, Filia fooling around with the dragon slayer. The final insult.

He approached with that thought stuffed away, unsure whether he wanted to say it or pretend it didn't exist.

"Hello, Filia. I was told Luna acted strange before she took Lassandra away. Can you tell me more about it?"

"I told Azonge already," she said. "Didn't he brief you in?"

Oh, that would be what Azonge had been saying on the way here.

"Right, yes ... say, your hands move again."

"Oh, they're better now, miss Luna helped fix them." She held them up, turning them clearly.

From a distance, Xelloss made an affronted cough.

"You don't get credit for breaking them again just so your mistake could be fixed at all," Filia said.

She didn't even look back, just looked away, but she smirked. Oh, gods. Milgazia didn't need to be told she'd reached the point of making light of her situation. Already. This was too soon. Anytime was too soon, but really, what was wrong with this dragon?

"Should you be so casual around him already?"

"I'm making the best of it," she said through gritted teeth.

Xelloss ran by, quacking incessantly.

Filia succeeded for all of five seconds to not break out in laughter. "Curse you, Xelloss!" she shouted between chokes.

"That's not a nice thing to say to someone trying to cheer you up."

She got control of herself again. "I am in mourning, I don't need a better mood!"

"Is it some ancient law that people in mourning are not allowed to laugh at all?"

She teleported herself and Milgazia up the cliff, and out of the pest's sight.

"When the best situation is making friends with an unrepentant killer whom you couldn't stand before, then the best isn't good enough. How can you tell whether you're not compromising your tolerance or morality or sense of self? Right now, you don't have a choice but to be here and adjust to his presence."

"What do you want me to do? Throw down everything and die? I didn't forget," she snapped. "I _know_ that once it comes down to the final decision, Zelas may very well sic him on me, but I don't think he wants to, so I reserve the right to resent Zelas rather than him. I've been over this with miss Luna already! I don't know what else I'm to say!"

"You talk about the future, but the past hasn't gone away, has it? Your hands may be healed, but what about your mind?"

"I very well know what happened. Should I curl up in black robes and cry it all out? I don't have time for that."

He started to get a clue what was wrong with her : she survived. All things considered, she shouldn't be doing that. Dragons were to be holy servants of order and existence, be that with or without god. Everything else was distractions.

Filia caught herself shouting and looked taken back or embarrassed; he really ought to get better at reading human expression.

"If laying down is what you need to do for peace, you don't have to help us find miss Luna. Despite what I may act like, I do understand the gravitas of mourning, and I know what it must feel like to see the murderer of your people hover around us. It's obscene, really, and I hope you don't get used to it. It's bad enough I had to."

"I won't have a hard time not doing that," he said. It really just involved leaving things as they were, the only thing he could do right about now. And the only thing he should do, yet despite common sense he asked it anyway.

"What are we dragons going to have to be in the future? Keeping peace in the world isn't clean cut anymore and we have no idea what world Lina will leave behind. We just live and that's it?"

"There's no easy answer, lord Milgazia, nor one that's right for everyone. I wish I had a clearer way to help the world and live my life, but I don't. I can't give you one."

He hadn't been aware that's what he'd been asking, but now she said there was nothing to be given he knew. He should give up.

"Alright. Let's at least see whether we can find your friend."

"Thank you," she said, now with a smile. That she could still do that, which was more than he could, other than imply a lie.

**· · · · · · ·**

He was too tired for everything, be it future or present. He sent along his people, handed control to Azonge and returned to his room despite Azonge's protests.

The best out of awful situations : he was alive despite being imprisoned in one of the infamous 'restaurants' of the devils. Most of his friends had been dead before that. Hell wasn't ruled by a devil anymore, it could be worse. They couldn't change anymore, however. If he joined them like he was now, could he hope it would get better?

If he died here, maybe he would be haunting this tiny little room on this cursed island forever. He'd appear when future tourists came, tell them jokes. Ah, yes. If he had died last year, he wouldn't have learned that. He'd have been too arrogant to see ... that had been arrogance, right? Or just obliviousness. Dragons were so detached, he rarely stopped to really consider the people around him.

So he'd tell jokes as a ghost and that would be his legacy.

He laid his head on the desk and waited for nothing, so it came as a surprise when something arrived.

A pleasant sensation of holy presence washed over him, accompanied by a whistled tune. When he forced himself to look up, he saw Luna leaning against the doorframe.

"Hey, Milgazia," said Luna Inverse. "What's with the frantic search party?"

He sat a little straighter and said, "It is for you and the Sage of Siephied, actually."

"Huh? Why?"

"You were last seen taking the Sage somewhere and next we know, your friends show up worrying about your strange behavior."

Luna shrugged. "I just had a bit of an existential crisis. Unlike Zelas, _I_ do not flip out. I just kidnap someone to pour it out in peace. Done now, I'd like to get back on the island. Filia and Xelloss are there, right?"

"Where is the Sage?"

"I let her wander off. She's gonna find herself another holy tree, start another sect. Should've known talking with her would be pointless."

He was about to get up and call off the search, but Luna walked over and sat down against the wall, next to his desk. It confused him enough that he sat down, waiting for an explanation.

"You know, I think I'm scared. Lina, Zelas and Ragradia taking over the world? None of those people are really into justice and law."

"What do you mean, taking over?"

"Oh, yeah, you're not in the real loop ... you remember Claire was really eager about me not talking to Rangort? It's not just the devils who will get remade. See, the other three gods are going to be killed once the machine turns on, their power merging with Ragradia. Two deities for perfect fusion magic, so once Lina changed the laws we're still gonna have those with all their powers. Lina's gonna try to turn the tides too, so that makes three. Right when I found out, I was gonna warn Rangort, but they got me convinced to see what'll go down. I'm still not sure I want this, though."

"This ... if this is true, it would be betrayal of the gods. Ragradia is not greater than the others," he said, reciting old teachings, but his heart wasn't in it. All together, it did not surprise him at all.

"I know that feeling," Luna said. "I wish I could change this all ... say, if _you_ could change anything, what would it be?"

"I want the world back to its simple order." It was out before he caught himself. "I want the gods to be good and the devils evil, because then there's hope one day the righteous can win. This all is becoming more and more complicated ... I don't know what's right anymore."

"I don't either," she said. "Wanna help me figure it out?"

"What do you mean?"

"There's an easy way to figure out what Lina is going to do. You can help me. I've got some trouble sleeping lately and it's easier anyway with dragons : we walk into her dreams. There we will learn what she means to do."

"Is _that_ why you took the Sage?"

Luna nodded. "She didn't wanna help me, though. Will you?"

"I should not invade people's minds," he said, because that had always been the right answer.

"Hmm."

Luna sat in silence for a bit, but just as Milgazia felt ready to really talk, she continued.

"Did Lina ever tell you _how_ she destroyed Hellmaster Fibrizo? Tell me what you know."

"We never were under the impression she did it herself, we believe she somehow caused it. The spirits of nature reported a great power around Sairaag that vaporized everything. Lina Inverse herself had been presumed dead, as her friends were seen mourning, but some power or another saved her. Over the following time, it became clear that Hellmaster Fibrizo is dead."

The smirk that Luna gave was both unsettling and assuring. "You must have a theory about what went down."

"There was a lot of speculation, the most prominent being that she is host to a piece of Shabranigdu."

"My little sister cast the Giga Slave. You understand what that is? No, I bet. She never tells anyone. The Giga Slave isn't just borrowing power of the Lord of Nightmares. Her power is her mind, her mind is her power. Lose control and instead of the spell disintegrating, She takes over the caster's mind. That day, Lina lost control. She cast it just to save Gourry. Gambled the entire world for one man, and paid with her existence. Something was returned that looks and acts like her, but bears the gold of Lucifer."

The Apostle of Chaos wasn't just some fancy title Zelas had made up?

Luna grasped his arm, urgency in her holy aura. "Help me figure out whether my little sister still exists. Whether putting the world in the hands of the Nothing. Let me in."

"Yes, I will help you."

**· · · · · · ·**

Milgazia woke up to the same hollow reality as he'd been in for months, but he understood it now. The world had gone wrong some time ago. Lucifer was merely some distant force that people ascribed more personality to than needed. Perhaps it had mind somehow. So did ants, who did not compare to the reasoning of dogs, and dogs did not compare to the reasoning of humans, and humans did not compare to the reasoning of dragons. The difference being that this primordial soup was the root of the world's fabric.

Lucifer did not need respect or tribute. Wisdom and fairness could not be expected from it, nor of any of its immediate creations.

It had to change.

Luna sat on a desk opposite of him, one leg over the other. You'd mistake her for a queen on the throne, but she really was just a soldier for the greater purpose, just like he was. He _wanted_ to help her make a change.

"Tell me what to do."

"Wow. It took longer for myself to convert," Luna said. "Anyway, let me introduce you to Lei Magnus."

**· · · · · · ·**

Luna led him to some cave near the shore. She had cast a barrier there, which he sensed nothing of. Fusion.

Sitting on a rock beyond it was Lei Magnus, barely recognizable in his casual clothing. Now under the shield all the force of devil radiance hit him. Milgazia nearly gave in to the instinct to flee, but fought it down with rationality. He had to be here if he wanted to changed the world.

"Isn't that the leader of the northern golds?" Lei said.

"Yep," Luna said, patting Milgazia on the shoulder. "He's going to help us."

"Why would he?"

"We converged a bit. He gets it now. Dragons are really inclined to serve gods and I'm the godliest they got here."

"You brainwashed him?" Lei asked. Now his eyes bore into Milgazia, it sunk in.

The man before him bore the responsibility for every death in the war a thousand years ago. He had hated enough for a devil king to be pour through his soul. Without him, his god and clan would live and the world would be better. Without him, Xelloss would have been in some city, irritating an icecream shop owner rather than massacring his people.

He hated him with every holy fiber of his being and every bit as a person too. Yet, he didn't want anything bad to happen to him, not right now. He was needed, Luna had said so. It didn't make sense for him to only want to be here. At the least he should tell Azonge or someone else, but he didn't _want_ to. He wanted nothing else than to help, and now this desire become pressing, burning like he's never known.

"We prefer to call it purification," Luna said.

**· · · · · · ·**

Milgazia's job was to get Lei Magnus on the island without anyone noticing. That was terribly easy. When Milgazia approached Azonge with renewed energy, Azonge was all too happy to take his new search plans and run with them. And of course, if they were on shore they could bring in some new food stock for the island, ha ha, Lina and her people ate like the world depended on it, right?

Milgazia stuffed Lei Magnus and Luna in a crate full of magical fruit, and Luna cast a few miasma dampening spells on it. A layer of fusion designed to cancel out magical radiation was the final touch. Milgazia himself accompanied the stocks back to the island, arranged for the elves to be occupied while it opened, and closed it after they were out. No traces left.

Luna and Lei went down an empty hall, to where Milgazia's room was. Not Luna's, in case anyone would check there again. Milgazia followed behind them, making sure nobody had caught a hint of them. Few people with a sense of magic remainder, and those that did were likely to blame any wisp of darkness on Zelas's pack of stray cult members.

The moment they were in relative safety, Lei started picking squashed fruit off of him; Luna did the same but at a slower pace.

"I may have gotten caught last time I sneaked onto the island, but at least I had my dignity," Lei grumbled. Unable to clean the shirt, he burned it up in a fit.

It sent a fresh wave of devil energy over Milgazia's senses. Every instinct screamed to flee as the astral plane drowned in devil power. He didn't _want_ to flee, though. He _wanted_ to stay and help more than anything, so he suffered through it.

All was well. It was. Really. Ultimate Evil was twitching mere inches before him on the astral plane.

"You don't mind if I take some of your clothes, do you?" Lei asked.

"I do mind, but it's more important that we move on," he said.

While Lei Magnus got picky over Milgazia's limited wardrobe, he muttered about not believing anything this ridiculous had even worked.

"I can believe it," Luna said. "Milgazia is perfect because nobody really pays attention to him."

"They'll notice if he vanishes or starts acting weird."

"Oh, don't be so pessimistic, Lei. Nobody's gonna think about Milgazia when Vrabazard is about to kick up a storm."

"What?" said both Milgazia and Lei.

"Ah, yeah. While we were fixing Vrabazard, I infected him to be obedient to him. I already had an inn from when I got Raugnut going on him, I just adjusted it a bit. Filia and Xelloss unwittingly helped me there, it was fun."

"And what exactly will he be obeying?" Lei asked.

"Any time now."

Nothing happened for three minutes.

"Are we going to find out anytime soon?"

Luna groaned. "He's supposed to go berkserk just around now, I gave the cue when we arrived. Should empty the main hall of most pesky powerful people."

Twenty minutes later, a sound came from outside some an exploding tea kettle (Milgazia knew all about those because Xelloss sometimes had rigged Filia's stuff).

"There we go. Milgazia, check whether the central hall is empty," Luna said. He wanted to obey, so he did.

As anticipated, one god had already left the central hall. Unfortunately, it was Rangort, the lesser threat. Ragradia and Zelas were still working on the machine.

On top of that, Filia and Xelloss had arrived and were chatting with Lina.

He returned to Luna to report this.

"Who is Filia Ul Copt?" Lei asked.

"Siephied's channel, Xelloss's fusion magic partner. You don't wanna meet her if she's got Xelloss around to cover with fusion. They've got a few tricks up their sleeve that make power levels irrelevant."

"I'll separate them," Milgazia said. "It should be easy."

"If you can bring either of them here, I can wipe them away easily. Though, I suspect the gods will notice if I kill that dragon, so make that Xelloss," Lei said.

"No. No no no ... I don't want him gone ..." Luna muttered.

"The best way to get rid of our enemies is to empty the astral plane. He can't exist in our new world, Luna, he might as well die now. If you want funny people, I assure you there's less dangerous ones."

"I just don't ... I don't know," she said. Milgazia wasn't an expert at reading human expression, but he was sure the clenched teeth indication conflict or hostility.

"I want ... nothing. Just. I'll do it. Lei, Xelloss can teleport. He'll get away the moment he sees you, but I have a better idea," Luna said. "Milgazia, go tell Xelloss your best joke. Once you reach the end of it, start again. Oh, and details. Give lots of details about the environment and everything."

Lei took a full five seconds to respond to that. "Is this a joke?"

"No, his jokes are eldritch," she said. "Especially to someone like Xelloss, who likes to have fun. Xelloss won't see it coming since Milgazia got cautious about telling jokes around him."

Lei took another five seconds. "Alright, but is this a joke? All of this? Is someone gonna jump out with party poppers while gloating about the trap I walked into?"

Luna took Lei by the shoulders. "Dude, listen. We live in a world where my bratty little sister is the Apostle of Chaos, mothers are universally either dead or bad, all the parents of every host ever just happens to be inspired to give their kids names starting with L, and Siephied goes around with a curse that makes people disbelieve her. How does it sound too surreal that a dragon tells paralyzing jokes?"

"Well, those are actually excellent points. Proceed. Just know that if there's party poppers I won't be surprised."

Luna spun around, shoved Milgazia in the back, and he obeyed. "Talk about a strange chain you found, it's in that storage room a level down where the talisman used to be. You put it behind a barrier for safety."

He nodded and walked out.

Filia and Xelloss had separated, with Filia still speaking with Lina. They argued about whether Lina should search for Luna and talk to her. Xelloss meanwhile tried to bribe Dilgear into using his nose to find her.

"Xelloss!" he said when he was close enough not to draw attention from the other two.

The devil looked back with a frown. "Do you have news?"

"Yes. We found something suspicious. You should come, we do not know what it is. Some sort of chain with holy magic. I secured it already, but we need to investigate further."

"Must you dragons put everything behind barriers? Take my word that it's not dangerous."

"Then you know why it has blood on it?"

Xelloss cracked an eye open. "Alright, where is it?"

He brought to the storage room, where Luna had prepared an actual chain, down to the blood on it and two holy barriers. Just like Milgazia himself could cast. She was up on her game.

"No guards?" Xelloss asked, looking round rather than at the object.

"Yes. You should hear this joke. There was a dragon with a soap bar. He walked down the street. There was a street because a commission for equal footing had been put through a few years earlier. This was about the elves and the dragons. The street was at the foot of a mountain. The mountain was named Blhaham. There were five more streets. This was the biggest street. It was made of square stones ..."

Xelloss froze up, opened both eyes and began twitching.

"Stop that," Xelloss hissed.

"... The dragon dropped the soap bar. This was because he was startled. It was by a noise from the right and a little behind him, about thirty meters ..."

Xelloss's projection started twisting and shimmering. Milgazia personally cast a barrier around Xelloss, then appealed to his devil pride. "Surely you can break through this on your own. Now ... The dragon stepped on the soap bar. It was squished because he was a dragon ..."

Luna slammed the door shut and enforced it with magic on the astral plane. Xelloss scratched away at Milgazia's feeble barrier only to slam into a more thorough one. More and more, he flickered.

Milgazia backed away while he kept talking, out a door that he hadn't known was there before, but the trail of white feathers told him it was. Luna had made another exit just for the occasion, which she closed up once he was out.

"Why didn't we just kill him?" Milgazia wanted that almost as much as he wanted to obey Luna.

"I don't ... it's not part of the plan. It doesn't need to be," she whispered. "It ... One is bad enough."

What little he knew of Luna told him she shouldn't sound so uncertain. She had no doubt when dealing with Zelas or gods, what was up with her?

Or himself?

Luna moved again, pulling him along with her sheer will.

"Let's try Lina next. That _is_ part of the plan. Bring her to my room, say you found something strange there. If she doesn't listen to you, don't try again, just come back."

Again he _wanted_ to obey, even as it made him sick to his stomach. She hadn't outright told him what they'd do, but he could guess. Bloodlust in the air.

Filia was gone too by the time he returned to the main hall.

Naga stood atop a golem to work on a higher part of the control panel, somewhere with Zelas. Lina herself was at a hole near the bottom, messing around with crystals. It looked like nonsense to Milgazia, neither the rhyme of magic spells nor the reason of technology.

"What are you doing, lady Lina?" he asked, not because he needed to, but because it would make sense.

"Adjusting the machine to work better. I don't have enough talismans to handle a struggling Shabranigdu, so we gotta make extra sure it's safe. Especially since the gods are still acting up," she said with a nod at the racket outside.

"I see. Could you come with me for a moment? I'd like to ask you something."

"Does it need to be now? I'm busy."

"It's a matter of faith," he said.

"Sounds like it can wait."

That just irked him so much, he raised his voice. "I'm sure for you it can, but your sister seems rather upset."

That got her attention. "You found her?"

"No, but there's something in her room that you might want to read."

"What is it, Lina?" Naga asked from above. "Are you just slow, or does that dragon actually have something important to say?"

Lina pondered for a bit, then said, "I think it's important. Keep going, I'll be right back."

Milgazia turned back already, expecting Lina to follow, which she did.

"So what'd you found?"

"A few teenage elves on a dare went through her room and uncovered a diary. It fell open and there were strange theories about magic in it and speculation on Lassandra, but after removing them we did not press further. It seemed indecent for strangers to do."

Moving as quick as he could in ordinary walked, he led Lina to Luna's room. Somewhere nearby Lei would be hiding, but it was far enough for Lina not to notice.

The door stood wide open.

"That's weird, I left the door closed," Milgazia said. He hadn't, but it was part of the pretense. He wasn't even sure how he knew the plan's exact details.

Luna sat on the floor, cross legged and completely in the open. She even had a book on her lap, feigning a diary. "Hey, little sister."

" _Luna_? When did you get back?" Lina asked.

Luna looked up, bangs falling away and eyes streaked with tears.

"It's not going away ... " Luna said. "I can't, don't want to work against it, but I still, I still feel like this. You can't want emotions away, but I have to _want_ to cut them off."

Lina took a step back. "Luna, this isn't like you."

Chaotic power whirled on the astral plane, alert for anything that Luna might do. Lina paid attention to her, ready for whatever came. It would be the thing of legends : an epic show down of the good sister and the bad sister. Chaos that favored life versus the passionless order that Luna embodied, by nature or will. Someone laughed in the back of Milgazia's soul, a joyless laughter. She'd been here for a while, but only now he truly heard her. Another phied, better than his own.

It was a story that he had no role in, but unexpected things always happened. Chaos was like that and not even Lucifer could control it perfectly. Good legends don't end with insignificant bystanders killing the hero before they ever land a blow.

He wanted a weapon against the Apostle of Chaos, and he was a dragon, strong even in human form.

Careful, he set his hand on Lina's shoulder as he took a step closer. She didn't respond to the touch of a friend. All her caution was on Luna.

"What's wrong with her?" he asked.

"I don't even know, but I know someone who can find out."

Lina turned around. He moved his arm along the motion, reached for her neck with one hand, the other aside her face. For a dragon, snapping a human's neck was as easy as breaking weak wood, he could do it in the same movement as knocking her out. Overkill wasn't his style, but then again, neither was murder.

She slumped down unceremoniously.

Lei Magnus entered behind Milgazia, still shielded by fusion. He shot a red flare at Lina's body to burn it up, leaving only the talismans. Part of the fire licked at Milgazia's shoes.

"Do we still need him?" Lei asked with a nod at Milgazia.

Luna shook her head.

Another flick of his wrist and the fire flared out, consuming Milgazia. It last only a few seconds of pure agony before he died.

**· · · · · · ·**

When he next came to his senses, white blue light pulled him somewhere. Ah, he wasn't going to be a grudge bound ghost after all.

The eternal blue flame was purely peaceful. If he didn't know better, he might imagine it paradise.

Well, except for the part where Lina grabbed him by the nose horn and shook him. "W-why the hell did you do that?"

"I don't know," he said.

"You don't know? I defeated three demon king pieces, Dugradigdu, Volphied, and faced down Chaos itself only to have my neck snapped in some backroom? And you don't even know _why_?"

Milgazia tried to pull away. Not that he wasn't already dead, but Lina was terrifying everywhere. Too bad she refused to let go.

"Luna was in on it, wasn't she? Did she tell you anything?"

"I do not think Luna really wanted to. She was able to avoid killing Xelloss because it _wasn't_ a specific part of the plan, unlike your death."

"What plan?"

"I don't know. Most of the things that happened were either said by Luna, or I just knew them. Something about remaking the world."

"We're not getting anywhere," Lina said. "Dammit, I need something to work with."

"Lei Magnus was with her, but I don't think that's something you can use."

"Lei-what? Chaos dammit, Luna!" The blue around Lina tinted gold as her anger flared. "Zelas said she'd rejected him! Why is she coming back on that _now_?"

He could keep saying that he didn't know, but what good would that do? "If that was all, I'd appreciate it if you let my soul move on."

"So you're just giving up?"

"I can't give up if there is nothing in my hands to give," he said. "I am literary dead."

"So what? That doesn't mean you should just stop trying."

"How much deader do I have to be before you let me rest in peace?"

"A lot more. We're not in hell yet!"

They might not be, but they were in a blue flame with absolutely nothing to hold onto, let alone to change fate with. Lina tried using that golden magic to do something to the stream, but it didn't work. Without body, she could cast no spells.

It did however draw a lot of attention. Other ghosts came closer to see, including something red from up ahead. This red light struggled to meet them, inching closer. Milgazia recognized her first. The Sage of Siephied, now sporting wings like Siephied himself, except colored to match her bright clothing.

"Lina! Here!"

"Stretch your wing, Milgazia," Lina said.

He did as told. Lina held onto the tip and reached for Lassandra, helped her pulled into the same substream as them.

"You're dead too?"

"No, I'm on summer vacation," Lassandra said.

"Did Luna do it?"

"Not at all."

"Do you know why?"

"Take your pick : 1. clown rains, 2. Volphied virus in Luna or 3. hula hoop sun."

"You're kidding me. _How_?" Lina groaned. "Ugh, nevermind. What do we do about it?"

"Wasn't there something ghosts can do to stay stuck to the world?"

"Yes, but she kicked me in here already, so it's too late for that."

Lassandra's grin told otherwise. Wings unfolded on her back and she grabbed Lina by the collar. "Six thousand years of experience."

With one massive swing, she threw Lina upstream. Screaming, Lina vanished from sight.

Then she came to fly before Milgazia. "Did Luna make that hole in your soul gate?"

He nodded. "She asked me to share a dream."

"May I enter?"

"Why?"

"Because I _can't_ help," she lied.

He needed help. He didn't quite want it, but he didn't want to stop random god souls from it either.

"Let me enter," she commanded, and it was difficult for a dragon to disobey the pull of holiness.

Her soul didn't enter like he'd expected. Rather, it felt like his own soul expanded to encompass hers.

Nothing happened until he wondered why nothing happened. Like remembering something, words came to mind.

 _I can implant knowledge straight into your mind, without the judgment process. Wonderful!_ _I'm not making any claims, I'm just storing information. Not my fault it's not quite my own mind. Aaaaaah! Anyway, I am Flare Dragon Siephied, reincarnated into human form. Hello, Milgazia. I need your help._

The last few months were full of massacre, torture, loss of faith, murder of friends and possession. Now Siephied was in his mind celebrating and asking for his help. This was not funny. Really. Could the universe stop now. Please. Hadn't he had enough mockery yet?

_Normally Megiddo has me reborn immediately, but I need to stay for a while. Preferably in a soul who isn't headed to hell. Notice how you're going very slow? You're much better than I am at confusing Megiddo with whether or not you're grudgy. Get to being pissed off, go on. The world hasn't been fair to you at all, you have yet to chew out my children and you don't want Memphy to go unsupervised while she runs off with a human lover, right?_

Well, no, but he didn't quite want to do anything, except maybe for the world to stop. That'd be nice.

_Ooh order, do I have my work cut out. Pay attention. You were infected by Volphied's virus, as was Luna Inverse, in Valgarv last's effort to undo the world. It's like possession, exploiting weakened minds, but more subtle in that it alters your mind rather than take over your body directly. It's the same principle that controlled the AI Val, but adapted to work on a creature with a soul. Your inertia is no longer controlled by your own desires, but by theirs. There are ways to get around that._

_Now I have you here, one of her victims. Let me just see whether I can unravel what my god damned sister created? If it works, you will need to grow new motivation, however. Hey ... do you understand?_

He did and somewhere deep down, it angered him. All of this game. Of all the things pushing him around, Megiddo was the least. God within his mind, he stood at the end of the world and in the hands of the gears that kept it spinning, now grinding to a halt.

Siephied's demeanor changed. Though he couldn't read her expression so well, the way her wings folded around his head radiated care. She seemed tiny as a human yet infinitely greater as a spirit. He did not know how to bow, but that was alright. She did not need to. The further Siephied seeped into his mind, the less he could revere her. She required no sanctification, but alliance and cooperation the way he would, and should, have done with elves and humans and any other living being.

He should have seen the way. She thought the same about herself.

_I have tried to take care of my world as best as I can, but it has been too late. I created the four gods wrong and I was not much better before that. I should have seen everyone alone._

**· · · · · · ·**


	47. Zelas's Word

**· · · · · · ·**

Power generator aside, Elmegiddo's summoning machine consisted of three layers. The central lake at the bottom, which concentrated the distorted space of the ancient battle. The floating island was the focus and pull. Above that hovered the portal itself. Right now, Zelas worked on the lake side on hardware facets, while Rangort tried to direct hir monks and angels to adjust the more ethereal aspects on higher layers.

With Val gone, they were left only with the old instructions that might be wrong. It was likely that Volphied and Valgarv would not have left hints for anything that allowed their pawns perfect control. So now they tried actually figuring out what everything did and how, working from hardware up since all software codes had gone with Valgarv. The Aqualord had a few clues given by Val, but that was it.

The second layer gave the most problems, since they had no lead on what exactly provided the pull. It was neither astral not physical, but it was something that worked like a hook. Shoot it in the guts of the fish and pull too hard, and the meat just tears apart. Erratic deities was the last thing they needed.

They planned to do a specified summoning soon, using the piece Lina and Zelas had taken apart. Zelas. With Zelas having control of it, that was the safest.

Well, _having_ ... it was hers to master yet. While the beast swarm was obedient and could understand speech, they were not independent beings. They could not adapt, needed constant input and froze up when presented with situations they had no instruction for. They felt and thought nothing of their own, yet moved on some sort of sentience shared with all but Zelas. Or maybe Lina controlled them after all. Had she done something different? Was that possible, even if Zelas had instructed Xelloss to approach fusion with the exact outcome in mind? Had she unwittingly cooperated with her own trap? What else did she not know about Xelloss and Lina?

Concerns such as those might have consumed Zelas if not for more immediate distractions, such as the delicate crystalline data sheets of a motherboard she handled right now.

"And another thing! You're not as fantastic as your servants think you are, they just don't know any better! You either created them, or got them from the service of worse."

Filia insisted Zelas should order Dilgear to help sniff out Luna, which Zelas had exactly zero interest in. For crying out loud, she had allowed Luna to carve into her emotions. She had _needed_ it. Nothing was better than avoid Luna in any and all ways. Luna took that hint, she wished Filia did too.

"They are my _pack,"_ Zelas snarled. Well, honorary members. Really, she and Xelloss were the only ones that counted when it came to the wolfpack.

"Ha! If that's so, why don't you act more like it? Didn't you declare to miss Luna that she's now part of your pack? You should be more worried."

It would be supremely bad to lose her temper now. Careful, she replaced the sheets and started taking apart the next row. "Well well, you certainly appear informed. What else passed between the lady corpse and you?"

"Just _your exorcism_. I don't know much about how your devil magic works, but there was a distinct sense of you having added miss Luna to your pack."

Fantastic, now there was a holy soul who could pick up on _thoughts behind spells_. Somehow.

"You know, maybe you did something that made miss Luna act so weird _._ I can only clean away devil energy, not its effects."

How she would have loved to drain that accusation, but she wasn't certain what exactly had gone down. Possession meant pushing down a human's weakened mind. On a purely cognitive level no devil was stronger than an organic mind backed up by a cycling soul. Luna however was a unique kind of chimera and even her human side was atypical. She hadn't meant to possess her and could not even tell when it had started.

She caught the noise of one of the hovering platforms descending, so let it go for now.

"Hey, what's up with all the angry faces?" Gourry asked when he jumped off his lift.

"She won't let mister Dilgear help us track down miss Luna," Filia said. "Even though it's most likely her fault she's got ill."

"Lina's sister got ill? Wasn't she always already?"

Zelas stepped away from the motherboard and closed its shield. "Yes, more than just ill, but that is not of importance. Why did you come down, mister Gourry?"

"The big worm said we gotta change the pipes for the generator to something about — wait, they wrote it down." He handed Zelas a complicated map in simplified northern language, too simple for one of her caliber. Evidently it had been written by one of Rangort's monks.

They'd discovered a protocol that could adjust and specify the summoned aspect, but it would only activate once security measures were taken. One of those was the alignment of the spacetime of the Red and Black Worlds, since the planets in both universes moved at slightly different paces. With simple worldly technique it was impossible to measure true speed in relationship to the universe itself; speed could only be measured in relation to other objects within. Even the astral world was anchored to the planet. However, if one tapped into the staffs that upheld the world, it was possible to calculate absolute location.

The machine was only supposed to summon and contain deities, not send them elsewhere. The fact that it nevertheless required the alignment only enforced what the Aqualord had said, about someone trying to get through last time Valgarv opened it. Connecting to the Black World had to happen before any of the other programs would work.

This was an excellent time to see whether she could do something about that, which would be done on the second level where aiming took place. Maybe Filia would finally take the hint.

Zelas followed Gourry up and let him try to explain things he didn't understand. Filia didn't follow physically, but of course she had teleported there once Zelas and Gourry arrived.

Zelas pointedly ignored her and went to find those damn pipes. Working on hardware wasn't pleasant for a devil, being so close to tools, but it was more tolerable if she did it to divert herself.

Gourry hovered around and chattered with Naga, who was in charge of earth reconstruction. That was acceptable noise. The pacing that Filia started doing behind Zelas was absolutely not.

"Must you do that?" she asked five minutes later.

"I'm waiting for Xelloss to get back so we can _do_ something."

And she kept on pacing. Zelas tries to ignore it, both the sound and the nagging realization. Xelloss was going with her, if not stopped.

Zelas didn't dare make guesses about the course of anything anymore, but it wasn't much of a guess that Xelloss's pack concept was looser than her own.

Earlier this day, Xelloss had gotten it into his head that he had to heal Filia's hands; apparently Luna now knew how to do that kind of thing, because why not. She'd been finding new ways to use her power ever since Zelas had plopped her on Orun's dance floor. Zelas had given Xelloss the time off so he could observe what her new powers were, which interested Zelas ... from a distance. It was the kind of giving permission that was normal, creator to priest, nothing like herself telling Luna to _yes, please mess with my spiritual reality, frail little human._

Zelas understood the reasoning of her own mind at the time, that didn't make the decision any less repulsive. Likewise, she could spin some sense into Xelloss's decision, but didn't stop worrying what that meant about pack integrity. Those who could be a threat shouldn't matter in any way except their status as enemy.

She could just tell Xelloss to stay away from the dragon ladies unless fusion was needed. That might even increase the likelihood of him not ruining anything else. Then again, something unexpected might happen again. Was that risk worth it?

Maybe not.

"Perhaps you might do a useful things until he returns, such as investigating why Vrabazard acts so much more erratic? Some time today would be beneficent," Zelas said to Filia. "Such as right now."

"I still can't just speak to Vrabazard when he's like this, you know. How long is it even going to take before the gods are normal again?"

"How would I know?"

"You made this machine!"

"How would I know, you ignorant dragon, when I was following the instructions of an otherworldly god whose exact intentions we have yet to fully understand?"

"Hmmmph." Filia crossed her arms. "Well, either way I can't just go ask Vrabazard and I'm not teleporting in the middle of two wrestling gods. Maybe you should ask miss Luna, she can link to Vrabazard much better."

"You might not have noticed, but she is not here." That one was just to needle her.

Filia turned away, directing her pacing elsewhere. "That's why we're trying to fi—"

She froze up and stared, a tinge of fear in her emotions now. Zelas joined her at the edge of the platform.

Small but clear to her beast eyes, down there was Luna Inverse.

"Poodlywoo! Where are you?" Luna unfolded her wings and circled higher. "Come on, who's a good wolf?"

Zelas's fist clenched around the particle she held. She reaffirmed her decision not to become upset about such juvenile taunting. At six thousand years old she was better than letting a mere foul word get to her head, more experienced with the challenges of the world, she hadn't spent a thousand year frolicking but had born patience and before that plotted and—

"Poooodlywoooooo!" Luna howled like a wolf.

The particle pulverized in her hand, but Zelas was definitely better than starting to argue about a name. Putting her face on bored neutrality, she calmly and evenly said, " _WHAT_?"

Luna looked up. "There you are."

Luna flew up. It didn't escape Zelas's attention that Filia was strangely quiet.

Zelas carefully smoothed into boredom and stepped back to give Luna room to land. "Luna. I would have you answer where you have been after that stunt with Leyunso."

Luna folded her hands behind her back, wings still out, and sauntered closer. "Oh, let's just say I was really curious. Did you know there never was a Sage of Siephied?"

"Hmm." What a curious topic. "I presume you know this because you stole part of her astral body?"

"Oh, I suspected it earlier. Leyunso said and did certain things, right, Filia?"

Filia stared at her as if trying to solve a puzzle.

Now Luna was closer, Zelas could detect her emotions. Grief did not match the smug pride her body projected.

"Miss Luna, what's the wrong with you?" Filia asked.

Luna's entire astral body twitched in a disturbing way.

Filia closed the distance between them, but Zelas grabbed her hair and pulled her back. "Stay. What may be wrong with her could be wrong for us too."

"That's quite right." Luna spread her arms. "But it'll be okay."

Her astral power folded closer into itself. The flayed dragon skull grew flesh over itself. Human eyes tried to grow in the eyesockets and patches of pale skin emerged — like a human face poorly fitted on a dragon's skull. Contrary to that, her wings turned from dark red to dark grey and gained softer feathers.

"A-are those Valgarv's?" Filia stammered.

Luna just said, "Nah, but I think Poodlywoo will be interested anyway."

"I doubt it." Zelas whistled sharp, a signal agreed upon when the workers had decided on how to communicate with the disconnected gods.

On cue to the signal for immediate attention, Rangort uncurled from the upper level. While lowering hirself, a line of hir monks teleported up to them. Zelas pulled Filia along as she stepped back.

Rangort might be detached from the flow for the most part, but due to being closest to the planet's core element, hir monks had figured out a little connection . The island was earth enough for it to work. Before Zelas had claimed Luna as personal emotion-culler, the monks had often wandered just beyond the edge of Luna's sight range, driven by curiosity. They had an idea what to do already.

Zelas could only see the reach of the monk's magic, but when Luna's physical body slumped down it was clear they had gotten in quickly.

For a few long seconds, nothing moved. Drops of holy flow began to connect between Luna and Filia, but before that could mean anything, Rangort opened hir jaws filled with power.

Filia cried out. Zelas hesitated.

The god stopped on hir own, becoming utterly still. All the monks fell over. Most scrambled back on their feet immediately, just to gaze at Luna or Rangort in utter confusion.

Luna's astral body stabilized and her physical body stood up. She dusted herself off.

It had been an act.

"Rangort, go activate the machine's upper part," Luna said. "Call mode first, then we do the blender."

Nothing happened. Luna tapped her foot, then grabbed the nearest monk and set her hand on his solar plexus. On the astral plane the weak connection between god and saint set ablaze. Rangort's projection grew more eyes and emitted a weak hum, while thin extensions grew. Extra senses, all in service of Luna.

They connected and stayed that way when Rangort spiraled up to the portal. Not to the main controls down below. There, Rangort tore the upper level apart and began to rearrange it in a way Zelas didn't see sense in.

Zelas adjusted her projection to warrior wolf.

"Miss Filia, could _you_ go in there and reach her?" she whispered to Filia.

"I already did. Volphied is guiding her."

Volphied.

Greeted, next unexpected thing. What took thy so long?

Time for reordering the facts, don't panic. Luna was Volphied's ally, one way or another; it was unlikely Filia lied about this. Not approaching Rangort directly, but letting Zelas call hir in, had been a set up. Luna could apparently dominate the gods and was the likely reason for Vrabazard going out of control. It stood to reason that the healthiest god would go deal with that, leaving Rangort here. The timing being just after Valwin left to the west might even be intentional.

This was far more strategic than expected from Luna, more befit to the plan Volphied had given to Valgarv.

Zelas caught a glimpse of Naga turning into a bat and flying out of the main hall. Nobody paid attention to her. She'd try to find Lina, who better be doing something worthier than gorge herself somewhere.

Zelas prepped up the surrounding space to warp herself with Filia away, the moment Xelloss showed up; she doubted she herself could fuse magic with Filia. Until, time to stall.

Chin up, she looked down on Luna. "What are you Volphied's general for, lady corpse? You believe you can be immortal after all?"

"Yesssss," Luna purred. "Don't say that like I'm pursuing the impossible. After all, I already got rid of _miss impossible_."

A sharp sting of panic behind Zelas almost made her turn, but she didn't lose focus on Luna.

"Where is Lina?" Gourry paced up next to Zelas, all of his easy nature gone. Too riled for fearing her, he locked eyes with Luna. "What did you do to her?"

"Same as when she was little, Gourry. I suggested her she go see another world and helped her take her first steps."

Lina Inverse might just be dead. Less a loss of a loved one for Zelas than a definite point behind her thesis.

Just as Zelas was about to throw all immediate plan in the wind and flee, someone too familiar called out, "Zelas, do not speak. Stay put."

It was done.

All the _should haves_ crashed down on Zelas. Should have fled, should have figured out Luna had back up, should have figured out she could fuse magic with others, should have figured Vrabazard's sudden rage was suspicious, should have, should have, ... but cannot, because she was only a tiny demon with a limited mind when the Lord of Nightmares was greater than all the worlds combined.

Gourry pulled out his sword, but Luna _teleported_ behind him. Luna tried slicing him with her wings, but he cut them down with his sword. So she simply projected full dragon around him.

Zelas couldn't see more, but the scream told her this too was over.

Should have just killed Luna Inverse.

Luna dropped the body without ceremony as her projection faded. She set the corpse ablaze. If that was what she'd done with Lina too, there was no hope of reviving the Apostle.

"Heh ... it's easier with people I don't know much," she mumbled.

Lei Magnus walked into view, first on the astral plane alone. A second piece of Shabranigdu hung crudely crafted onto Lei's original astral body. Trace light of a world shard shone from the seams. This piece of Shabranigdu was still all devil king, untainted like the blended Lei Magnus. There could be no perfect merging between them.

It had to be the piece she and the Sage of Siephied had sealed millenniums ago, it was the only one accessible on the planet outside the island. There were no traces of the human soul that had once helped restrain Shabranigdu, however. Had Lei destroyed him, or ... no, Shabranigdu was gnawing on the soul barrier, wasn't he? She had seen similar flow when Xelloss had returned from his first dream stunt. She'd thought _that_ a horrible wound at the time, but she reconsidered. That had been an inversion, this was rot. Lei wouldn't last long.

When his human self passed by he looked shabbier than ever, wearing only cheap modern clothing. The Zenaffa weren't around; either they'd ditched him or he'd been forced to teleport. One of his eyes appeared a little more human than all red other. Gone was the imposing dark sage, this man was just tired and cursed.

Rangort's monks decided it was time to do something at last. Their collective attack was easily swept away, but the distraction allowed a few of them to teleport away before Luna noticed. She intercepted two, but no more.

"They'll warn the Aqualord," Lei said. "Get this machine going, Luna."

"That's Rangort's part," Luna said, vaguely gesturing up.

Lei pinched the bridge of his nose. "The Earthlord is disconnected from the flow, right? You said the core controls are at the lack down below. The god is _above_ us."

"Yeah, but I think there's an extra mechanism up there? It's blurry, Va- I didn't get all the explanation during the tour."

"Valgarv's tour?" Filia asked. "Why are you doing this, miss Luna?"

Lei cast a curious look at Filia, but didn't move on it. Luna feigned a curious expression, but didn't feel it.

"Right, you're ... you should have left, but I have something to say."

"Is this going to take long?" Lei asked. "I'm all for dramatic conversations about treachery, but only when I'm sure to be winning."

Luna raised a finger for him to wait. Lei rolled his eyes, but did stand back.

"You wasted your chance for true change, little lady," Luna said.

Filia's eyes widened when she realized. "Va—"

Luna was quick to cut her off. "A little, mostly just passing along a message. You know how mothers always die when they're not bad in this world? You're alive because you never were a real mother."

Zelas hadn't been eating, but the absolute shift in Filia's mental state was hard to miss when she stood so close. Filia's emotions both sank into hopeless and igniting a growing fire. Through gritted teeth, Filia said, "You have no right, Valgarv."

"Hey, don't shoot the messenger," Luna said. "I'm only here."

"Luna, two things," Lei said. "First, do we need her? Second, why are you passing things for this Valgarv person?"

Luna rocked on her heels. "I don't want to kill her and she's not getting in the way."

"That doesn't answer either question."

"I don't think she can," Filia said. "Miss Luna, fight it, please! This isn't like you!"

"It isn't me, but who is me anyway? I can't tell with all these holes. Y'know in Sailoon, Val didn't so much pick a fight for kicks as that he just _ate_ part of me. T'was to create a more solid thing for the white lady. The real one : a little bird caught by a mere cat. Pretty, no? He had a hole to fill and now I have that part back. People are just parts cobbled together, so what does it matter?"

While Lei looked on in growing confusion, Zelas's own confusion died out. Volphied's avatar had been under her nose all along? Val's innocuous fixation on birds had not been so harmless, had it? Couldn't unexpected things be something _nice_ for a change? How easy it would have been for Xelloss to kill those birds, if only they had the slightest clue something was amiss with them.

At that moment, Rangort finished prying open the gate, then spiraled down to connect with the controls below.

The pillar shot alight in a pale silver.

"We'll talk more later," Luna said. "Ragradia will be here soon."

Lei sighed in exasperation. He didn't need to wait long.

With little more than a rush, the Aqualord slipped into Elmegiddo. Her massive dragon form manifested between the top two layers of the machine, close but not close enough to touch Lei's astral body.

"Aqualord, we'll have our rematch today." Lei didn't raise his voice, hardly seemed to care. His astral body expanded on one end as if that Shabranigdu tried escaping, but he pulled it back in control with ... _he had the demonsblood talismans_. Fantastic. Just fantastic. Nothing went right today.

Zelas threw all her thought against the order to stay. Stay here, where, for how long? Could she get out? Could she stretch when she knew exactly what he meant? She had to—

"Zelas, help in all ways you can to prevent the Aqualord from touching the machine."

She cemented her warrior projection and threw herself at the Aqualord, right after Lei projected a twisted two headed Shabranigdu. She remained small while Shabranigdu encased the inner layers of the machine as a wall of flesh. His erratic force meshed poorly with her precision, her first hit was a stray blast from Shabranigdu. Combat had never been so detestable. All the small intricacies of survival defied the command; she wanted to get away and save herself, but doom everything. Instinct did not fully obey command and the Aqualord did not hold back in the least.

Survival had never been a matter of going through the motions so much as this.

She lasted until Vrabazard poured in, bringing along a storm of fire. Zelas drew back just to launch herself at the Aqualord, ramming her into the other god. It gave Vrabazard a chance to wrap around her, pulled her along out, no regard to whom else got hurt. She burned and could not do anything about it. All ways to help Lei meant ignoring her immediate pain.

If she could, she would turn all of this back on Shabranigdu and Lei.

Once Vrabazard had pulled the Aqualord out of the tower, Rangort barreled hirself at the Aqualord. Both energy attack and astral body pushed the Aqualord out. The possessed gods pinned her down in the water, at which point Zelas was released from the command. There was nothing left to prevent and the order to stay had been revoked.

Stop projecting-stop. She had to stop, she shouldn't be falling, gravity shouldn't _matter_.

Dragging herself across the layers of the astral plane scorched her, not unlike Vrabazard. If she could just do it quicker—"

Lei Shabranigdu's voice thundered across the shore. "Zelas, return!"

She stopped. She _had_ to stop. She couldn't stop.

Her projection solidified and she flew back the slow way — the only choice she could still make.

The Aqualord writhed in the water close to one of the sealed pieces of Shabranigdu; the one Lina had broken not too long ago. All the extra drones now gathered around it, eyes on Zelas.

She howled at them, or it, forcing the meaning of staying free within it. More she couldn't do before Lei called out again.

"Be silent!" he called, and then quickly added, "Unless I ask you a question! Answer those!"

He'd been thinking his orders through better, or maybe he'd gotten advice.

When she returned into Elmegiddo, someone had killed most of Rangort's monks. The angels had either dispersed or had met the same fate.

Zelas stayed afloat just barely within the tower, staying as far away from the gate as possible.

Lei had been given control of one of the elevating cylinder, while Luna took Rangort's place at the bottom level. Filia was with the four monks who had survived, trying to heal one on the brink of death. She still survived, but there was no sign of Xelloss.

Luna opened the doorways in either end of the hall, through which they had planned to bring in the hosts for merging. Lei Magnus went out one way first. Soon Lei returned with one of the hosts, which he tossed into the central lake. Then the next, this one accompanied by the beast swarm. The bodies followed what remained of the core, taking nor giving any initiative otherwise. Zelas wanted to speak, maybe steer them against Lei or have them send a warning, but right now she was just like them. Complacent and without will.

After Lei threw the next host in, he rubbed his hands clean on his robes. He cast worried glances out at the sea, where the Aqualord inched closed to the island. Her advantage as a healthy god could be felt, Zelas could only hope she would make it.

"No reason to be nervous, it'll be over soon," Luna said. She held out a flame on the edge of her wings. Lei joined in his darkness. Fusing their magic, they cast an extra barrier of the the central lake's surface.

Once Luna could let go active control of that, she returned to her position at the controls. Crystals had grown on the broken panel, which Luna jammed a bleeding arm in.

"Here goes all or nothing," Luna said.

"Don't joke about the nothing," Lei said. He was just afraid.

A thundering sound echoed through the tower. At the top level, raw force she had no name for pried open the walls of the world and struck a path beyond it.

Zelas had expected a display similar to Xelloss's reports of the mission seven years ago, a terrifying mass pouring out, either dark or light.

After nothing happened for almost a minute, what they got instead of a demon was a tiny human woman falling out. Freckled with brown hair in waves, she looked ripe for the outdoors. Yet she wore a grey suit and strange biomechanic additions, looking neat and alien more than wild and lively. Zelas didn't know what to make of her.

The human landed on one of the smaller floating cylinders. It lowered her to the second level. She hopped down before it stopped and looked around on confusion. Finding none, she peered down the edge.

"Hey, you guys are supposed to be up here!" Somehow the voice carried even though they were so far and had no magic.

"That's the _old_ plan! Valgarv's dead and we got no doves, so we're doing this manually!" Luna yelled, using her magic to force the sound up.

"Aww, no," said the person. "I'll be right with you."

The cylinder descended until it stopped before the outcrop of the control panel.

She landed on her toes, clicked her heels and saluted Luna and Lei. "Leticia reporting for duty. Other than poor Valgarv's demise, are things well?"

"Who is this?" Lei asked. Zelas was too far away to sample emotions, but hoped that really was the suspicion it sounded like. It was about time.

"Ally," she said. "Apostle of a different bend that my little sister."

"You can say that again," Leticia chuckled. "Best way to keep from being swayed by Her : order. It helped my Black World a little too much because now we have these messes of deities, but what can you do?"

"You could _explain_ what you're doing here, for starters," Lei said.

"I'm just a little bit of back up and a pinch of key." Leticia clapped her hands together. On the sound, a bright sphere expanded between her hands. "Really, don't mind me. You're about to meet someone more important."

She winked and stepped away from the sphere, standing aside with her hands behind her back.

"Zelas, stay near me and be ready to fight," Lei called.

Zelas landed at his side, not sure what to fix on as enemy. Volphied's holy presence, despite having magic, could be felt in her physical projection, but Luna was more likely to be the threat. Just after she landed, a holy ripple went over her back and wings. Filia had teleported in behind her.

"This is not what you told me would happen," Lei said to Luna.

"It's a surprise," Luna said. "You might even like it."

The sphere took the form of a human woman, clad in a white gown with red ribbons. Two cloaks flowed below her hair, one of waving cloth, the other rows of feathers springing from two red gems. Mint green hair fanned out. To many human eyes, she would be every inch the goddess of light.

Meeting the glare of Lei, she said in a most soft voice, "Do not fear, I am your ally if you will let me."

"Really, Night Dragon?" he said, "You know you had to hide, so why even bother pretending now?"

She held up a placating hand. "Please don't mistake the mirage you spoke to before for me. My avatar of this world was destroyed before Valgarv even reached Kataart. What you met was a projection by the child, who had been programmed to deliver a message. Without me, all he could do was relay rough information on basis of Valgarv's knowledge, who himself was not awake at the time."

Lei crossed his arms. "Let's hear the truth then, because I'm very interested how you'll explain the part where you once tried destroying my world."

"It is a similar story as your own, Lei Magnus. You know what it is like to be a chimera, how it poisons your identity. We were not the clearest of mind at the time, incomplete as we were, so Valgarv could compel us to destroy what he hated in the time it took us to enter this world entirely. We had never entered in our entirety. Once we were whole, we would not end the world, just empty it. There is only astral and organic life on this one planet, it would be as easy as traveling to your moon, taking off a piece of it and hurling it to the surface of the planet. It would result in an global extinction that nevertheless leaves the planet whole.

Dugradigdu and I did not agree on what to do with it, but Valgarv tipped the scales to me : we would reformat life in a superior way and program it so there will be no strife."

Lei doubted, but in Filia the anger reaching boiling point. She stepped past Zelas.

"Mister Lei, wait. What proof do you have they will simply reform the world? Valgarv has always spoken of purification, one that would involve recycled souls, all old identity lost. That child you saw, I used to be his mother. Volphied might not have had direct influence for a few weeks, but in the years before this she and Valgarv could cooperate. They manipulated is for years and we couldn't even tell."

"The child you speak of, was he the one I saw in Kataart?"

"Mint haired, yellow eyes, white pants, blue vest with red edges. That was the day he returned to me bleeding, after straying to visit you."

Lei nodded. "Sounds about right. Did he work for them?"

"He was not real any more than a golem, he had no soul, no independence. They can create simulacrum personalities so good that even an emotion eating devil could be fooled, but ultimately, what they make is just programs they control," she said. "Creating personalities is like molding clay to her."

"What do you have to say about that, Volphied?"

"Yes, in a way it is accurate." Volphied floated over to Filia. Ah, new strategy. Lei doubted, so the source of doubt had to be dealt with. Killing her now would be suspicious.

"Not all constructs were hollow, mind you. I myself was there in a form. I have seen you for all that time." Volphied manifested a white dove in her hand, holding it to Filia. "Don't you understand what our ability means, now that you have given life and independence to our Val not too long ago?"

"Zelas, what is that about?" Lei asked.

Zelas quickly summed up the key aspects of recent events. Volphied didn't look too thrilled with this, but didn't interfere either. Filia waited by, her eyes more often than not on the dove that now rest on Volphied's hand.

Once Zelas finished, Volphied said, "It is all true, but see it in context : our ability allows us to test out personality before we give them independence. Deities though we may be, we cannot govern multiple planets alone. This potential exists to populate planets in a safe way so they can function without war even if we are not around. Personhood is only the sum of many small parts, why would the starter pack be considered sacred?"

"Sacred means nothing anyway," Filia said, almost like she agreed. "You were the reason Valgarv went to his knees before, weren't you? Was he as Val, or had you altered Valgarv?"

"Had you taken his hand, he would have been real in every way. Valgarv was desperate enough to make his soul available, the gate was open, it could have been. He could have been Valteira."

"Really?" Filia laid her hands on the dove, like a child desperate before an adult with the power of wishes. Filia felt anger, but somehow managed to bring forth more sorrow.

"And he could still be," Volphied said. "Not in a mere simulacrum like that. I have all of him remembered."

The dove shimmered as Volphied drew out a tiny blue sphere, in which a tiny ancient dragon floated. "All we would need is a soul."

"A soul alone isn't enough. That's not all we did," Filia lied. "We had to give him a dream body as well."

Just slightly, Volphied frowned. "A dream body?"

"The dream layer is a side of the astral plane that goes the other way. No seat of spirit, but a land within the spirit," Filia said.

Out of Volphied's sight, but within Zelas's, Lei Magnus tensed up.

"Can you actually access the astral plane without Valgarv?" he asked. "Luna doesn't like a very stable way to do that. She leaks."

It was a test. Whatever might have been possible with Valgarv was obsolete now. Luna was a mere human, poorly blended with holiness. She did not have the same potential and synchronicity as a millennium worth of dragon-devil chimera. Volphied could make no promises for souls in this world, who relied on the astral plane for their identity.

"We hoped together you two might be able to," Volphied said.

"Really? I did once think Luna and I could work together, but that's not whom I'm contracting with, is it?" Lei spat. "Your mirage in the Kataart mountains told me you would destroy the astral plane. It's starting to sound like Valgarv slipped something. Get lost, Volphied. I didn't go through hell and ice just to be reduced to a mortal puppet on your hands."

Volphied pressed her lips together and Leticia gave a sheepish smile.

"I start to see why you sought out Luna as your ally. You also want—"

Volphied should've kept her eyes ahead. Filia ripped open a soul gate between herself and the bird, pushed her own holy magic through and tore it from Volphied's hand. Barely had it left or she teleported to Zelas.

"Warp me away."

A request Zelas was all too happy to oblige and quite able to do, since nobody had forbidden her to let others leave.

"Can't follow that," Luna muttered to some unseen command. "Can't trace devil warping."

Lei groaned. "What now?"

"Oh, yeah, Filia does a lotta trickery without outright lying lately." Luna grinned and actually felt something to match that expression. "Oh, Vol, didn't figure that out yet, or wasn't Valgarv in the mood to admit he'd been tricked?"

Volphied appeared entirely to human when she whirled around to face Luna, more than a little upset.

Luna shrugged. "Didn't wanna tell you. That's what you get when you only let me wanna end the world with you."

Oh, Luna wasn't Volphied's general, she had been rewritten. From the sound of it, where Zelas could not act on what she wanted, Luna could not want anything else. Yet, her personality remained the same otherwise. What would that even be like?

Lei prepared to warp away too, but he hadn't charged up for long distance and his sick astral body did not help. He was about to command Zelas when Leticia hopped behind him and hit the back of his head. He lost focus and slumped forward. His physical body passed out and Shabranigdu reared, but the chimera side just barely restrained him.

Zelas didn't attack, she'd only been told to be ready to fight, not to actually fight.

"Well, this sucks," Leticia said. "We gonna go ahead without channel thing?"

"Yes," Volphied said.

Leticia saluted and took Luna's place at the controls. She didn't need to bleed for connect, as she had her own crystals grown from her gauntlet.

Zelas wanted to speculate on what beneficial not vital use Filia could have had, but her thoughts wandered to the inevitable. What would Filia do? What _could_ she do, even if she found Xelloss? Was Xelloss even alive? Hoping felt ill in a devil, but its fading was worse.

The pillar turned brighter yet, filling the remains of the tower with a soft wail. Only with her physical ears could Zelas hear the tone. A song, ethereal without meaning, deep without either sorrow or joy. It brought down a silence Zelas hadn't realized existed.

The gods outside stopped struggling. They came into the tower and whirled around each other, forcing an uneven unity of light. The crescendo rose the more they unified. Its only irregularity was the curse on Vrabazard, but even that began to smooth away until there was only holy radiance.

Valwin took a little to arrive. Once all four had joined, the song's was strong enough to echo even in the physical world.

Luna stood up and unfolded her wings. In her hands she held the angelsblood talismans. She trembled and her eyes were tearstreaked, but the emotions didn't devour her. More than sorrow, she felt regret.

She looked at Zelas for the first time. "Isn't it pathetic, Zelas? I was afraid you'd do this to me, now I'm doing it to myself and you're the one who is afraid of me."

Unable to do anything else, Zelas lowered her head. It wasn't a bow, no submission. Just acknowledgement of a similar fate at her.

Luna flew up into the godly light. Just like that, she'd vanished.

When she joined, the light drew together in a perfect, simple sphere. The astral plane around it became so clear, Zelas could even see the outline of the world wall, scarred from the ancient battle.

The sphere, no ... the _egg_ of the gods began to rise up, carried by the pillar's light until it was above the earth.

Right as the egg legs the pillar, the light turned black and the song changed into a cursing call. The lake boiled dry as the pieces of Shabranigdu converged. Megiddo itself howled as the pillar broke through it and pulled at the hosts within hell.

Luke and Lezo were spat into the world at the bottom of the pillar, only seen for as long as it took to be pushed into Shabranigdu.

Lei's human self screamed out, now wide awake again. He trashed and clawed at the floor before finding bearing. To think such power could be anchored by weakness.

"Time's running out, Lei Magnus," Volphied said. "One way or another, Shabranigdu will be reformed. Please, just accept my help."

Lei found a spark of that telltale humor stubbornness, also known as hardheadedness. He looked at her held out hand with nothing but contempt. "No. You'd just make me into what you want," Lei spat. "I'd rather die on my own terms, if I don't take over Shabranigdu myself."

Fool, if Zelas had a choice for a chance she would have taken it, however little. He wouldn't win against his other, purer counterparts. Not when all of them were together.

"Well then, there are plenty of other planets in your universe. I do not need this one," Volphied said.

She phased herself behind Lei Magnus, right where on the astral plane the additional piece was welded on. In reflex he lashed out with magic, but she could not be touched. Unstable as she might be in this world, her physical form was far stronger than a mere human. Lei was helpless as she drove her arm through his back and janked out the red sliver. That forced all his attention to the monstrosity on the astral plane, leaving Volphied time to snatch the demonsblood talismans from his arms.

"Let it sink to the Sea of Chaos and take all devils along."

Lei fell forward, either in giving up or because the growing malformation of his body. Lacking any meaningful way to keep whole, Shabranigdu's untainted part poured over Lei. His body distorted and mutating, growing bleeding tendrils and limbs all over. Little human remained soon, replaced by a convulsing mass that failed to spawn Shabranigdu's form. Shabranigdu couldn't even speak.

All throughout it, Volphied had the most serene smile. Without hurry, handed the demonsblood talismans to Leticia, but the sliver she tossed to Zelas.

"Y-you have no hope of locking Her out!" Lei sputtered. "Once She i-is in, she'll be free to go everywhere!"

"It is a one way portal we made here. Of course, I expect our Mother to find a way regardless, but we did not model this process after Megiddo without reason. If push comes to pull, I'll put the matter before the actual Megiddo. Who better to handle the passage of souls than an entity that can carve into the walls of the world?"

"You're-you're out of your mind."

"I am a god created to ensure existence," Volphied said. "And I am a person who does not want to suffer. That is quite within my mind, thank you."

Volphied didn't spare him another glance as she flew up, Leticia floating behind her on a rising platform. On the way, Volphied manifested a swarm of insectoid drones, which took apart the gate within seconds. This done, the swarm followed Volphied into the blackening sky, right at the now distant egg of Siephied. They didn't stop flying for as long as Zelas could see.

Zelas had to agree. Volphied wasn't out of her mind, she did the most logical a being like her could do. That didn't mean anything more than Zelas, who herself should being — should have done — what was most reasonable. Her own survival, the way she was and wanted to be.

Lei refused to be torn into the now blood red lake, but this only mean Shabranigdu could expand through him. Distorted flesh crawled closed over the floor. Sensing her, veins shot out to wrap around her limbs. They pulled her forward. She could not physically resist, but she could pick up the red shard as she was swept over it. For all that it meant helping Volphied by being a thorn in Shabranigdu's side, it was the only thing left to hold onto.

Zelas clung to everything she had evolved. She had no solid soul, no survival instinct to fall back on, but she was her intellect. He would destroy her before her power would be his to wield.

At least, that was what she wanted. He just had to command against it. Imagining she had any agency left was all she could do. Now, oblivion would be mercy to Zelas and victory to many other devils.

"How did you become like this?" Shabranigdu's voice came from all angles. "How do you dare become like this?"

He didn't kill her. He demanded perfect submission to his power, forcing her to slowly grow back into the being she'd sprung from. A little here, a little there. Her active energy, as used for attack, merged with him first. Then the channels through which she ate emotions. The edges of her very soul started to blend with his until he no longer had to command by voice.

Somewhere Lei Magnus screamed, but she couldn't even tell what direction. Everything became Shabranigdu.

He reaching up into the pillar, growing on both planes into the gateway. The ragnarok surface crumbled under his force.

With the mere breath of the Lucifer, Götterdämmerung began. All Zelas hoped for shattered. Where Fibrizo went down in mad despair, Zelas would go down in muted failure. All the ways her plans had gone wrong either by her own faults, or the unpredictable, she remembered now. How had she ever thought she could defeat this complicated world that she wasn't meant to understand, to question?

Perhaps she had been rebelling all along. If nothing else, she could try to retain her awareness of that until she was upon the Sea of Chaos. Let's see whether Lucifer even cared, or whether the existence care itself was just a whim. If so, then this punishment was whim too. She refused to be a whim.

She forced her eyes to project and open. Shabranigdu quietly mocked her, but let her see just to feed on her.

On the physical plane, the first tears on rock announced Her coming. Gravity became erratic and the lightning of the tearing world wall helped it tear apart the tower. The first drops of golden chaos seeped into astral plane. Soon they'd spread to the physical world.

All this passed beyond what Xelloss had described during Her first visit. Then She had held back, never intent on ending the world. Now, the astral plane itself tore apart with it.

There was nowhere to go even if she could.

If Volphied won, what did it mean? She didn't have enough information, again.

If Shabranigdu won, it would be what the Lord of Nightmares wanted. If Siephied won, it would be what the Lord of Nightmares wanted. All those years she had told herself that either way was fine, it was acceptable to experiment, because all of this was merely an expression of Her Will. Now old muted instinct boiled into a cacophony of joy.

She began to crave the end of the world, even as she revolted. That one moment of pure exaltation, of utmost perfection that any devil longed for. Any, save one.

She heard Xelloss before she saw him. Somewhere between the rising ruins, he called her name.

When she caught a glimpse of him at last, he was alone. Any last hope he'd run into Filia by sheer chance and could come with fusion magic at hand died.

His astral outline had frayed for some reason; whatever had deterred him hadn't been good. No dragon at this side, no fusion magic. He could end today, like everyone else ... but he didn't have to.

The instinct to take down this world with her did not carry on to others, she found now. Zelas still wanted him to live.

Shabranigdu noticed her weakness, or his, because he pushed her further out onto the physical plane in her wolf form. Her most organic form, the one she'd once developed to 'experiment' with how exactly life worked. Veins, spine, flesh, all of it now down to the smallest preceptor of pain, just so he could tear her apart before her priest. She could not die from physical injury, but projection was made from power regardless. He drove a spike through her jaw, making it harder to speak. Ripped the wings off clean, then decided that rot might fit : a third layer of pain, because her pride crumbled with it.

All along, Shabranigdu whispered to her. Devils have no children, he told her. She was not the daughter of the demon king, nor was Xelloss the child of the alpha wolf. She had fooled him, made him more like the mortal souls that always cycle through Megiddo, he told her. He could make Zelas die mortal death as long as he wanted, she should appreciate that the world would end soon, but she couldn't do it perfectly, could she?

He didn't expend much power on her, just enough to keep her restrained. If it went as he wanted, Xelloss would watch her die and stay too long.

Luna's jest wandering into her memory as a final insult. _It's probably just mothers in this world. Mad or missing._ She'd be both to Xelloss soon.

He found her.

When Xelloss landed before Zelas, he hesitated to attack Shabranigdu. He didn't know what to strike. Zelas herself could not even tell anymore where Shabranigdu started and she ended.

When nothing moved against him, he stepped closer. Behind him bloody appendages grew out, slowly encroaching.

"Are you still here, my liege?"

Zelas forced her eyes to focus on him, hard as it was with the things growing through her skull. He lowered his head the moment she looked at him, ever submissive.

"What happened? What can I do?" His emotions didn't taste like he believed there was much left to do.

Speaking was difficult now she had so little magic left to herself. Air and throat were the best she could do.

"Volphied has entered, but did not succeed as she wanted," she rasped. "Our Apostle of Chaos has failed, if she ever existed."

"Miss Lina failed? How?"

"Only by being murdered," Zelas said. "Without a vessel she is powerless. How were you not here when I needed you?"

A wry smile played on his lips. "I was unfortunately occupied ... Milgazia told me a joke."

She chuckled through the pain. Of course. That would be the message. All of this was a joke. If Xelloss had been around to fuse magic with Filia, everything might have gone differently, but he hadn't been there because a dragon told a bad joke. This was the entire world : not a mistake, but a perfect joke.

It didn't matter anymore what Zelas knew, it didn't matter what she believed. Far more than anything, she wanted the joke to end. She couldn't make it so because she was the joke, but Xelloss still had a chance. The Sea of Chaos did not call for him, did not want him. Lucifer herself had ensured that.

"Xelloss, you have to go," she sputtered.

"My liege, he's not paying attention to you, I could give you an edge in breaking free," he whispered. Did he really believe that?

"No, he is here too, pushing me. Go, survive. Find Ruby Eye's portal before this world is gone, anything, just survive."

He took another step, still ignoring the tendrils of Shabranigdu that closed in. "What am I supposed to be without you?"

"Whatever you always were when not on our island." She had an idea what that was, since Xelloss would rattle off frivolities unless she stopped him. Skip the pointless banter, she'd always said. Maybe she could have predicted him better if she hadn't.

He'd always been eager to leave, but now he stayed when he shouldn't.

"My liege, the Lord of Nightmares won't end this world so simply. She must have another intent, we just have to figure it out. She sent back Siephied ... and you cannot even believe me. Please, trust me when I say this won't be the end. Don't give up."

"Xelloss, how can I give up when I have nothing left to give? But you do, so I command you to exist."

"We can _bot_ h exist. Let me help you. What do I attack to break you out?" He laid his hand on her snout. She did not have the energy to mind what otherwise would be a great disrespect. Respect meant nothing now Shabranigdu had invented hell for a devil.

"There is nothing to help, it is over. I am just a trap for you now. This entire world is. Get out while you still can."

"But if She wants to—"

"It doesn't matter! Get out of Shabranigdu's range _now_!"

For a moment, he laid his forehead against her snout. She feared he had learned to disobey after all, but before Shabranigdu closed around him he jumped back. Obedient as always, but for the first time Xelloss had looked at her with horror in his eyes.

**· · · · · · ·**


	48. Filia's Work

**· · · · · · ·**

Filia had come full circle, past boiling anxiety and guilt right into a familiar pit of rage.

 _Again_ , she had not been prepared. There should have been a struggle over the fate of the world with Lina at it's center yet instead, it was Volphied and Shabranigdu. The Big Dramatic Tragic Showdown Of Destiny with her sometimes ally sometimes enemy had been skipped over yet again because someone close to her turned out to be an evil god's puppet, and Filia had been so focused on the idea Xelloss would be her enemy that _Luna_ hadn't even come close to mind. While plotting on the island, she had gone over everything she would say in the end. How to rile him but not too much, so he had no hooks. How to ignore whatever he tried to undermine her. How to ignore the inevitable hurt.

When faced with Luna she had had no idea what to say to reach her, if that was even possible. Nothing was fair. Valgarv being dead meant she couldn't even confront him over it and Volphied was the avatar of serene denial and apathy. Everything was an artwork of injustice. Now Volphied had to be destroyed and Filia _would_ be part of it.

The question was how to do that. Xelloss would be a good start, but she didn't have the faintest idea where he'd gone. Calling hadn't helped, scrying didn't work anymore.

Now she ran through the tunnels, trying to reach the station. The place Zelas had dropped her off hadn't been familiar enough to teleport from, and she didn't want to risk long jumps in this unstable area.

She didn't meet anyone. With the walls shaking and cracking, even those unaware of the chaos would've fled by now.

Well, most of them. When she arrived in the station it was swamped with so much people, took took searching to find a familiar face. Humans, elves and dragons in small form crammed on the platform to be sent to the shore.

It was a Zenaffa she recognized first, holding up the crumbling ceiling aided by several golems.

"Hello?" Filia called. "Miss Memphis, is that you?"

Memphis spotted her first when she peaked out her Zenaffa, but Sylphiel was the one to meet her. "Miss Filia, what happened?"

"Volphied took control of the gods through Luna," Filia said. "I don't know her exact plans, but we just need to revive miss Lina somehow. Has any of you seen Xelloss?"

"I saw him while looking around," Naga said as she pushed through the crowd. "He was headed for Zelas, I went on to check on Lina's status. She's definitely dead, by the way. Is Gourry still around?"

"No, he's—they killed him too. You ... you seem awfully non affected."

"I'm more or less dead too, it gives me a fresh perspective," Naga said. "More importantly, you and the cone just need a few circles and a place place to give her a new body, right? Throw in Gourry while you're at it."

"Yes, but we might also need a god," Filia said.

"I'm taking these people to Sailoon and will get something ready," Naga said. "We'll work on finding Lina's soul when we can, you go find your demon first."

"But how? I can't invoke the gods for flow reading anymore, and ..." She looked at the dove in her hands. It was meant for finding things, but it couldn't see directly on the astral plane. Xelloss might not be projecting. "I don't think I can."

"I can, miss Filia," Sylphiel said. "My scrying doesn't rely on the gods but on nature spirits."

Sylphiel set down her rod on the ground and knelt behind it. Filia made a mental note to remind Xelloss of that time he acted like her own method was so weird.

The rod fell to the east. Sylphiel kept her eyes closed a little longer, then said, "He's headed across the sea to the shore station. He's phasing in and out for some reason."

"It's to navigate. Thank you, miss Sylphiel. I'll take my leave now. All of you, please stay safe."

"We'll be," Memphis said, thumbs up. She was the only one in the room who looked sure of it.

**· · · · · · ·**

Xelloss would've been a lot faster if he wasn't in a distorted area while struggling with how to handle this order.

Had Zelas just defied the Lord of Nightmares? He had to leave and live, but Shabranigdu had won and the world would end.

_Go, survive. Find Ruby Eye's portal before this world is gone, anything, just survive._

Anything meant he had a choice on what method to survive through, but he had to survive for ... what? Could he bargain with the logic? Survive what, survive for how long? If the Lord of Nightmares showed up with a desire to end the world, would he be forced to defy her? Fibrizo's defiance had been met with the worst death a devil could have.

When he came to the island he'd once dumped Lina, Zelgadis and Filia on, he stopped. He landed on one of just three roofs still intact.

The theme park had been long abandoned. Signs of Vrabazard's rampage and devil curses hung over it. A few dragons had once made camp here, likely lost when a transporter ray malfunctioned.

Now he looked back. The pillar had turned dark and bled red, but the world walls hadn't broken yet. Not being in immediate danger gave him some time to think. The Temple of Chronos wouldn't be at its last location and he didn't have time to measure space-time damage to figure out where it'd be. Getting into hell was a long journey and he wasn't sure Megiddo could even seal off that world. He could probably exist in the Blue or White World, but he might have to find another place where the world barrier was thin, like Sairaag, and hope that when the world broke entirely he could pass through.

None of them were guarantees, nor what he wanted. This was his world.

Any attempt to decide was interrupted by a golden glow that joined him on the roof.

Great, just what he didn't need, Filia complicating things.

"Oh thank goodness, you're still here," Filia said. "Come, we have to find miss Lina's soul. She died but that doesn't have to stay that way. The flow still works around here and the gods still live and maybe we can get Gaia's help—"

"Shut up!" He didn't hold back on the venom, but it fell on the wrong earth.

Filia grabbed him by the cloak and hissed, "I am not shutting up until this world is saved, Xelloss. I've had it up to here with all the backstabbing and malice and destruction and we are damn well going to stop it even if it's the last thing we do."

He pulled her hands loose and pushed her back. "You can't defeat this with just willpower."

"We have more than willpower!"

"No! I have an order to get out of this world and survive. What I want doesn't even matter, no willpower can bypass that. Look somewhere else for help."

"If that's so, why are you still here?"

Ugh. "Well, it's not so strict that I have to keep moving whether or not I have decided how I'm surviving," he grumbled.

"Good, so let's decide on a way to do that that revives miss Lina."

He wasn't sure he wanted Lina back if that meant she could mess things up further. "If we were to revive her, where would that even leave me?"

"What? Are you joking? You doubt miss Lina? What's with the whole apostle of chaos thing, you just decided that doesn't deserve respect anymore?"

"I didn't decide, I realized it could be deception."

"That's it, it might be a charade? Pot, kettle, black, Xelloss. Never stopped _us_ from cooperation and in case you haven't noticed, _the world is ending_."

"You're not—"

"And another thing! The last time you were presented with a bad joke, you wanted to murder someone over it and I just barely got you to back down. Why the everliving hell am I now here, having to talk you into murdering someone? I actually agree with you for once. This whole mess with Volphied, is a joke bad enough to kill over. But nooo, Xelloss has to be difficult and useless again."

He should be deciding on how to carry out his orders, but Filia was nothing if not supremely equipped to get his attention in all the worst ways. "You can't shout this away. Go be angry somewhere else, or do you want to die here? Maybe Megiddo can save hell at least."

"I did not pass my weakness seven years ago to where I am now just to be suicidal again."

"You don't get it, do you? There are worse things than death. You won't be anymore if you fall into the Sea of Chaos," he whispered. "You know, I could send you to the afterlife right now, no pain involved."

"No," she said. "I won't give up or let you give me up and I'm sick of demons telling me I don't get things. I know what's at stake, do you?"

Beyond her, something shifted into physical view. A winged wolf in the colors of Zelas Metaliom. It spotted him and landed behind Filia.

"Lord Beast Monarch? Are you ..."

The beast prepared to speak, but Filia teleported them to the other side of the island.

"What's wrong with you?" Any other time that had been an accusation from her, but this was concern mingled with a low ongoing anger.

He spoke without being sure what he meant to say. "Lina isn't serving the Lord of Nightmares one way or another, and neither is my liege."

"How does that matter?"

"My clan ... our pack was supposed to be the change the will of the Lord of Nightmares! The Beast Monarch is not supposed to decide it doesn't matter! How can we go against our Creator? We're not supposed to question Her when She indicates otherwise."

Now it was Filia's turned to be stunned by him. "You're despairing. You. Are. Despairing. You ... _are you kidding me_?"

The wolf drone caught up, appearing in the shadows right behind Filia. "Xelloss, return to me."

_Return to Zelas._

It didn't outright contradict the other, vaguer order. It was her voice and her form, her words pulling like all commands did. Knowing that she hadn't been in control of the other bodies last he'd seen her wasn't enough to weigh against it. Not when the possibility existed that she'd taken control of them somehow. Shabranigdu had been so slow to try and seize Xelloss, maybe she had leverage still, maybe—

Filia took a step aside, blocking his view. "Are you gonna fall for a trap _that_ obvious?"

"It's real."

She teleported him away again, this time inside a building.

"Then fight it! Are you loyal to what she is, or to who she is, Xelloss? Who she is wanted to escape _what_ she is, right? That was what this whole damned plot was about!"

"It was," he said, but the sound was as empty as the feeling that accompanied it. "She changed her mind, though."

"No, someone else changed her mind! The real Zelas would only be pissed off if you surrendered to Shabranigdu. You who has more freedom than any other devil. You know what it felt like to her when she was betrayed!" she yelled, and in a softer voice, she added. "And you know what it feels like when you betray me and miss Lina and everyone else."

Xelloss almost broke away. Just barely Filia grabbed his staff and tried to jerk it out of his hands. He was too strong for her alone, but it did get his attention.

"You don't know what you're talking about!" he snapped. "She is rebelling against the Lord of Nightmares Herself! And guess what? The only reason she ever took another route was Siephied and Lina Inverse."

Filia teleported him away again.

**· · · · · · ·**

It had to be bad if he dropped the respectful prefix, but she was just a little bit to angry to tread carefully. Once they settled between two ruined buildings, she rushed out her words.

"Fine, if you're so sure, then go back and die like I would've done. Be a martyr to some concept of equilibrium and chaos, that the Lord of Nightmares does not need and Zelas does not want. It's just all a whim, like you, all of you. Really if it's all so whimsical anyway you'd think you can do no wrong if you either survive or give up, but sure, have an existential crisis over a whim."

Eyebrow twitch.

"I was _not_ having an existential crisis! I am about to be absorbed by the king of demons if I don't get out and I risk the wrath of the progenitor deity! _I_ am not exaggerating or giving up!"

"Oh? You sure seem angsty to me. So where's your plans to talk to miss Lina and Zelas to find out what their deal really is?"

"I can't! One of them is in hell and I just got an order to go back to the island, where I will be absorbed by an untainted devil king! Get that through your thick skull, dragon. I am out of options."

"No, it's _not_ untainted. The piece that miss Lina cut up into a swarm is still there. We know the gates and spells she used to create that. Merging with Shabranigdu does not need to be your end." Filia knocked down part of the wall that kept the island from view and gestured at the horizon. "Look at that. The golden sky, the breaking earth, the boiling seas. Isn't it just the perfect day to murder your grandfather?"

"You're doing it again." He covered his eyes with his hand, but couldn't hide the smirk. "You are the worst dragon in this world."

"Pardon me, but I'm about to be the best. I'll take Shabranigdu within my soul along with you, where we can bleed him out as we need. We fit the scars of miss Lina's Life Law Circle right onto one we will make for your dreamscapes. I have cut into gods and devils before, I can do it again, but I need help. Xelloss, dream with me."

He dropped his hand, serious now. "Yes, you can. If I were to let you in, you'd have a free run on my mind. How would I protect myself against you?"

Filia blinked. "You're afraid of _that_?"

He crossed his arms. "It's a pretty reasonable fear, you know. You have a recent history of compromising your moral dimensions and there's nothing else between that and rewriting me. I might prefer to die."

"Don't be ridiculous. No matter how low I've sunk, would I do it for my own whims of justice? I will not tear apart any mind unless I absolutely have to. Shabranigdu is that absolute, but you are not."

"No ... you probably wouldn't, but only if I don't go too far, right?"

"Would you to test me again?"

He just shook his head.

"Then you might be the worst devil in the world," Filia said. Gods, how had it come to this, she was about to let a devil possess her and it didn't even feel foul.

"I might be, if you can convince me I could survive this."

"I could've gotten to that sooner if you'd been more sensible." Filia pulled a white dove that had no astral side from a subspace. "While you were gone, I pulled the whole daughter of naivety act so I could steal this from Volphied. It's one of her drones, which can be controlled with the right core and has an astral hollow like Val used to have. If I just tinker a little with it, you can take it close to Shabranigdu and I'll use it as beacon to teleport in without Shabranigdu ever realizing something is wrong. If we're quick, we can plant our magic right atop our enemy."

"I need to be far in before he'll dissolve the voice of Zelas and we need to move quickly after that."

There it was. The calmer Xelloss she knew to calculate and scheme. It'd be alright now, she had to believe. Then again, she had a hard time believing her own plan.

"You say that as if I'll be slow. Anything else?" Filia said.

"If we keep the life law gate open below us, Shabranigdu will have to use it, or admit fear or weakness. A more creative devil would be able to reason it's a challenge to wear down the fusion shield until one of us is down in magic, but Shabranigdu is quite stupid," Xelloss said. "There is the risk he's reject the challenge and invoke Zelas anyway, but I tend to lose awareness of my surrounding when I dream so I might not hear it. It's a risk, but I suppose one we could take."

"Then what are we waiting for?" She shoved the dove into Xelloss's bag.

Xelloss smiled without humor, eyes open as he warped away.

Filia sat back and waited, now alone with the sinking realization she had just taken for granted the need for Xelloss to return and had run with it. Deciding to deceive Valgarv had taken long thought in the valley of the ancients, yet this decision had been reached so easily. It might say something terrifying about her, but that was for later.

The flow of the dove existed on a layer Filia had never knew existed. Having nothing to do with either blessings or curses, Shabranigdu did not affect it. She could see only darkness, but somehow knew the route and distance it took.

As expected, Shabranigdu had used the piece Lina had worked on to create the extra body. Xelloss met Shabranigdu-Zelas in submission, managed to avoid saying he warped because of his cargo, and stepped into the malformed mass. Shabranigdu stopped bothering with the Zelas simulation.

Time for Filia to go.

When she reappeared at the other end, she instantly flared out all holiness she could. It blended perfectly with Xelloss's darkness, encasing them in an egg shaped shield. The sickening pressure wrapped around them and she fumbled to create a life law circle.

"This place is so small, can't you like become a tepee so we can cover that with fusion?"

"Excuse me, I am not a tepee! I am a cone."

"Yes, exactly. Tepees are your geometrical twin," she said while shoving Xelloss off the ground.

"That's a gross exaggeration, I am not a manmade construct."

"Then get your feet off of my circle!"

"Hmmph."

"You take orders from a dragon?" The voice thundered through her bones.

"Sure," Xelloss said. "Normally I'd object but when it's between her and _you_ there's no contest."

Filia had to finish her circle by hand and resolved not to respond to that low bar.

"What do you think you and her can even do?" Shabranigdu roared. Filia's ears began to hurt already.

"Why don't you come in and find out? Or are you afraid to come in this way?" Xelloss said. "Pathetic."

"How dare you insinuate that!" Shabranigdu blared.

The pressure lessened somewhat, now turning to the life law circle. Xelloss dropped to his knees.

"If I wake up and find you painted something silly on my face, I'm sure you understand there will be _serious_ consequences." The taunt fell flat because of the anxiety in his voice. Hearing that in Xelloss was nothing short of unsettling.

"Wholly deserved ones." She stood behind Xelloss, so he wouldn't topple over and she could use both hands. "You can worry, but keep talking to me, okay?"

"I will."

She laid both hands on his solar plexus and cast another life law circle. "Ready?"

"As much as I could be."

She detached her astral body just a little from her physical ones and brought him through the circle, into her soul.

**· · · · · · ·**

There was no difference between astral plane and any other sensation here. It was worse than hell, which at least had layers. It was worse than imagining, because there he still stood somewhere. Here was only him in one body and an impenetrable world around.

Filia's dreamscape, if it was hers at all, felt both resilient and pliable before he could make out any shapes.

Once the world took form, it appeared as a massive dome over green lands first, forced by intricate gold. Clouds floated far above and countless villages lined the scenery, though far in the distance lands were barren and ruins of massive temples lay. It was the kind of picturesque human scenery mingled with guilty memories like only Filia could envision.

Filia herself looked the kind of cozy bright she had when she went to towns and pretended to be human. Even her ears seemed rounded, like she denied or had forgotten how to be a dragon. Not that she ever would.

"It's like when a soul departs to Megiddo, but as a window and not a door," she said. "Don't worry about how it feels, you just need a concept of it and I'll do the rest."

"I'm ready, let him in."

They opened the window. He wasn't sure how, he just decided to and it happened.

Shabranigdu poured into this one opening with all his force, bringing sickness and rot over the scenery. Grass turned to malformed flesh and crept up their legs, the sky filled with toxic fumes.

Filia screamed out and curled up, but not for long. She forced herself back into standing tall.

Incorporeal yet but clear to their senses, Shabranigdu drifted around them.

"Why are you doing this, beast priest?" Shabranigdu said. "Why did you become such a traitor?"

"It's not treachery. I was never _your_ ally. The Wolf Pack is allied only to chaos." More he couldn't say when he had his doubts.

"Chaos is on our doorstep yet you turn against me, who would bring us there!"

"Really now? In the old times, chaos meant absolute order. The stillness, the blackness, the nothing. Now we know our Lord and Mother as a Sea of Gold. Perhaps She too has changed. Now these days, chaos means erratic, movement and unpredictability."

"You will pay for your treachery!"

Shabranigdu pushed forth, not as one, but through many different bodies. Neither Xelloss nor Filia had expected that. Just barely Filia reimagined the environment to be full of walls, but it turned out to be the walls of the demon over run Kataart temple. They were amid the hall of the Aqualord, albeit it had dried out.

It took Shabranigdu only moments to come pouring out the door.

The dragon statue on the other end animated to launch itself like an avalanche onto them, only for Shabranigdu to scatter in all directions. The instinct to withdraw to the astral plane didn't work, there was none here. A swarm of igdus whirled around them, leaving no room for escape.

The statue reassembled and twisted it's long body to wipe as many away from Filia and Xelloss.

"How are we supposed to unravel him if there's so many?" Xelloss said.

"Patience, craft and the usual." Filia released a whirl of wires from her hand, which surrounded them as a razor thin net. The pull at his dark magic told him it was to be fusion, which he gave into.

The statue cleared some of the space around them and what got through cut itself on the wires, but Shabranigdu only responded by turning more like a liquid.

"Fools, I have millenniums of experience navigating souls!"

Not dreamscapes, but that was close enough. The beasts whirled around their shrinking barrier. Many had lost their chimeran elegance to Shabranigdu's clunky flesh. Malformed humans and half grown Ruby Eyes that carried the scent of burning blood.

Shabranigdu as a whole wasn't this. He'd manifested through the many fragmented pieces that Lina and Zelas had broken off, which was both a benefit in that they didn't need to deal with a coordinated rot, and a weakness in how they'd have to defeat multiple forms.

One in the lead was dressed as Xelloss's weakness. This was humanoid, but wore a wolf skull over its head. One eye was human, the other pitch black; as the eyes of Zelas had been.

More blood than solid now, they poured around them over the floor. The defensive statue soon dissolves in it like molten butter.

"Hold it!" Filia said, but it was her who had more trouble keeping the net steady. Only when the mass touched them did they gain matter, just to try driving their claws into them. Pain felt both distant and more concrete here, perhaps as mortals did. Xelloss could bite through it, but not fight the effects. He couldn't even gauche the effects in this realm; how badly was he damaged? Or at all?

Filia cried out and lost he grip. All the threads vanished.

For her the darkness had to be worse. He was about to pass to her, but the leader of the mass stepped between them.

"Xelloss, who are you to disrespect me like that?" the wolf head said. "Should you not call me lord?"

It was the voice of Zelas. Unlike the drone, it also felt like her own _power_.

She couldn't be here, she'd be dead, right? He had to believe that, if only for the chance it'd weaken a command to him.

"Xelloss, give—"

"Don't listen!" Filia's voice drowned out the rest, then utter silence fell. Only Filia herself still made sound, if only in her burning herself through the clawing mass.

She collided with him as she staggered past the false Zelas. Golden wire shot from the net and pulled the enemy back, putting all force on that core. The lesser bodies still attacker her and him.

Quickly, she pushed him in a certain direction before taking the lead. Her light scorched the unrelenting lesser devils better than his own fire did.

They settled into a pace through the darkness, the attacks fading away; left behind or warded off, he couldn't tell.

He focused on Filia and Filia alone, trucking away any thought and doubt about Zelas, lest it give Shabranigdu something to exploit. The last thing he needed now was to lose himself into some dream corridor about what Zelas truly meant.

Filia did not bleed from the wounds Shabranigdu had caused her, but she shed more than a few drops from other wounds. Had those been there before?

The tunnel they entered hadn't been here before either, Xelloss had to remind himself not to question it.

All the whole, Filia cursed below her breath. It was the usual spiel about useless devils, except it echo sent back words like garbage and sewer priest. He supposed it wasn't really breaking the agreement if it was just her subconscious, and if it wasn't, well, it might be a tad petty to complain about being called names when he'd done worse. It was also a tad worrying he made that connection without prompting.

The deeper she pulled him into — what was this, a cave? — the more she took on an astral form, albeit the human shaped one with the long ears and tail. Normally astral bodies of organic beings are but outlines of energy, but here hers took on the scars of her life. In a place where he could not feed on pain, he was left to only see the consequences.

Oh, so that's what the wounds were.

Bones of orihalcon did not protect her from what would cut the flesh above. Every time Val had touched her had turned to scorch marks, leaving little of her face and arms bare. Where Valgarv had pierced her through the torso boiled in red flame, leaking in a trail behind her.

The marks on her limbs where Xelloss had struck her burned the same way, but the smattering of bruises stood out more to him. Marks from every time he had dropped her or lured her to smash into something or otherwise. High electric tension surrounded her like droning whispers, anything from expecting to be killed to fearing he'd pop up to ruin something. Hold onto the pots, dress quickly, cancel social events, pay attention to the doors. Would he take Val? Would he kill her once he got bored?

Many small wounds added up, yet she didn't even seem to notice them. She had always brushed off his abuse as easily as his insults. It had been expected. Funny. Normal. Food. Entertainment. Now it only looked like pointless destruction to him, which he could not undo with any magic.

The swarm of Shabranigdu was right at his back now, or so it felt. Incessant whispers leaked through Filia's blockade, putting a name to what he felt and warning him against it. _Don't concern yourself with other life, beast priest, for how can you still be if you play with antithesis?_

The blue dragon hadn't gone down this road. He didn't have to either, probably. It'd be harder.

The years of connection between himself and the dragon had corroded, almost entirely by himself. No, he had something to do ... what was it again?

_Severe it._

He held a thread without remembering when he picked it up. It meant he could have something at the cost of pain, or have neither and no pain.

"Where are you?" someone called. He knew her, she was the reason.

Curiosity, in part, made him press forward. Self preservation was another. After that it was easier.

His enemy tore at his mind, telling him not to go, but could not give a good reason. That he didn't want him to go was all the more push. He had to catch up to the other end of this connection.

Like there were many to his enemy, there was more to him than just this one self. On the other end was a light, blending with his power to guard them both. It's what held the enemy at bay.

When he caught up to the light, she sat in a pile of rotting kitchen waste, knees pulled up and wings around her against the darkness.

"Where were you?" she asked, casually indignant as if this was a normal place to be. As if ... well, it probably was. After all, this was where unwanted food parts went. Here he'd thrown all the parts of her that didn't interest him; zeal, compassion, suffering, kindness, righteousness, all waste to him yet so important to her.

The words of a storybook princess hero came back to him. _Because she's your friend and you hurt her a lot._

If he died today because she wasn't strong enough, it was on his own head. That's the sense and cost of caring, or choosing not to. It got a wholly self directed chuckle out of him.

"What's so funny?" She didn't seem to notice what she appeared like, perhaps because it felt so normal to her. It had already been years since he put her here.

"Nothing," he said. "Nothing was. Where do we go now?"

As she stood up, he offered his hand. She only briefly glanced his way and said, "I'm fine, this is nothing. Did Shabranigdu get to you?"

"Shabranigdu? Who is that?"

She froze up. "Xelloss? What's wrong?"

Tilting his head, he asked, "Can't you tell? Everything is wrong with you, while I am ... "

No, he wasn't fine, but he shouldn't think about the mother wolf. Unsure why, but it'd weaken him. He had to focus here and now, stay with the light.

"I will be better once we escape from the enemy. You too," he said. "What's the quickest way out? You know that, right?"

The one who sensed the flow, so she had to know. Why did she hesitate? Silvery wire slipped past him, wrapping through both of them.

She stood up and of all things, took his shoulders to shake him.

"Xelloss, you're dreaming. You lost lucidity, but you can find it back if you _focus_! I did not dive into ultimate evil just for us to die cause you got reckless!"

The enemy surrounded them, they had to _focus_ on getting out of here, but something about her sparked the need to argue back. "We wouldn't be having that problem if we got out of here!" He stepped back, holding onto her arm. He didn't actually know whether that was the way out, but he'd come from there, right?

She anchored into the ground and wouldn't budge. "Xelloss, please. _Think._ We came here together to destroy Shabranigdu."

The enemy destroyed? No chance. The enemy was far greater than either, but they could flee while he self destructed. He had to survive, she should survive to. Only way to do so was to leave.

"Are you listening? Remember why we got here!" She pried her arm out of his grip. "And keep your hands off me."

Should she be stronger than him?

The answer came in her voice and the echo of a deity, knowledge more than sound. She was this world, he couldn't move her if he wanted to.

"You can feel our fusion magic, right? It will stop once we don't have the same goal anymore, so listen to me or we will die. Then you will have disobeyed Zelas and failed Lucifer."

That last name shook him to the core. One moment of weakness was enough for the enemy to lurch forward. A wolf jaw closed around his neck. Fangs pierced into his body. Almost like a mortal death, but she surged her power forward and scorched the enemy back. The grip loosened just enough for him to tear loose.

Barely was he out or she — Filia pulled him deeper into the dreamscape. The demon king's bloodlust seemed to fall back to a distance.

The reality of his near failure hit him like a brick. He's gotten lost because of ... what was it, guilt? Care? Something Amelia would have a field day with either way.

"Well, uh ..." This was embarrassing. So, so embarrassing. "How did you—"

"With how often I've covered for you, you better be about to say something other than rumination on how implausible this is. You messed up, I helped you."

"I know."

Filia kept pulling him along through a hall so high a dragon might fit in. Dragon statues decorated the far ceiling. Likely, this was what her old temple had looked like from the inside. Dark veins already crept up the walls; Shabranigdu would be here soon.

The silvery threads drifted behind him, but they weren't of use now. He kept them in the shadows.

"Where are we going?"

"Down a cavern I made at the end," she said. "We're going to make another soul gate there. I'll bait them into the net, you wait at the other side."

"Miss Filia—"

"If we anchor the fusion magic right on my soul walls, you won't need me to pay attention to it. It'll work."

"This isn't—"

"But that's not gonna work if you're not sure of yourself."

" _You_ are too confident! Shabranigdu was made to quell the light and that's all that you are. You can't handle him alone!"

"So what? Once you control this piece you can break out. It's not like I plan to die. I can't, I still have to save the world."

He couldn't just think up another way. That Shabranigdu was simple enough to be easily tricked also meant that he was too simple for anything more complicated. Speech and charade wouldn't be enough.

"Fine, we'll do it like that."

"Excellent." Filia grew her wings while staying in human form, or at least that's what he saw. The ground below her crumbled into a dark pit. Without another word, Filia fell in.

On the dimly lit edges he could see simple engravings like she favored on her ceramics. He hoped they'd still be there on the other end.

**· · · · · · ·**

Filia willed the path to close after her. Dreaming with Luna had never required her to control the scenery in a defensive way, she needed all her attention to steer it. It worked nothing like controlling her own body, instead depending on roundabout imagination. Half of the work was fooling Shabranigdu into limiting his own movements by raising the idea of barriers. Maybe on this plane there was no difference between false and real.

For her, it felt like a descent less than it was immersion, but she had to see it as a place so Shabranigdu would. As along as he believed it, she had the advantage.

She couldn't tell the line between just power and herself anymore, but the line between herself and the devils was all the starker because of it. It made it harder to ignore the sheer absurdity of her undertaking. When in the rush of rage it was easier to gloss over the " _oh heaven I'm taking a dip in the soul of ultimate evil_ " part. How Xelloss didn't suffocate in Shabranigdu, she couldn't imagine.

Was he actually not suffocating? Had that been what had lost him just before? Well, he better be stronger.

The deeper she went, the more complex their fusion net became. It only worked by threads because that's how she thought. If she hadn't been refining cat's cradle, it might have been clay instead. As long as it was some craft she was familiar with, its function should be right.

The red swarm was close on her trail, too close. Once a claw ripped at her wings and there a tooth nicked her tail. Yet, her fear was less about Shabranigdu than whether Xelloss would be there still. She could believe she was faster than Shabranigdu, but Xelloss she was never entire sure of, be it his choices or his vulnerabilities.

To her relief, the circle of Xelloss himself approached where it should be. Filia had but a few seconds of head start to adapt the seal. She landed at the nearest edge, holding onto the rock more for comfort than need.

She attached the net to the corners of the circle and wrapped out through the rings. There, she briefly traced her hands of the strange, familiar symbols.

Xelloss has taken the inspiration of this one from Luna, hadn't he? While working, in the marks and sensation of the energy. Somehow, it reminded her of Lina moreso than Luna. What was going on here?

Shabranigdu roared and hissed too close. No time to wonder.

Xelloss waited beyond the seal, both eyes open. Filia had never really seen him from the front like this, not so clearly. She'd once thought he looked like a stranger, but no more.

He held out his hand. In passing by, she gave him the one thread left. She turned around only behind him.

The Zelas headed one barreled ahead, only to lead the flock into the cutting net. Shabranigdu's raw forced pushed it to its limits, Filia felt it through her soul.

Yet now Xelloss hesitated. Just plain stopped. The nerve he had!

She stood behind him and reached around, putting one hand on her arm and the other on his back. Not quite pushing, she leaned in with her last holy power.

"You know, you ... " She left a very pointed silence for him to imagine to the word garbage, accented by trash dropping aside of him. "If we fail because you hesitate over being stronger than Zelas, you'll die knowing I was right about your existential crisis. But sure, do go ahead hesitating. At least that's one thing I'll win."

He chuckled. "Well, I can't let that happen, can I?"

Their last bit of magic fused with a refined intent.

**· · · · · · ·**

Xelloss took the face of the enemy, tearing it clean off a human skull. Any semblance to Zelas became meaningless.

Without turning the head, he pushed it on his own face. It inverted until he felt no difference, but he heard the change. Shabranigdu's voices rose to a cacophony of howls and commands. They enticed him to tear apart the light at his back, pushed rot into every corner of the dream, twisted around and clawed at the soul edges Xelloss had never sensed. He could recoil from nothing, but he could not die either. Filia's soul kept either of them together and she would never muster the hatred for the world that Shabranigdu needed to escape.

What Xelloss gave the screams in return was nothing like sound. No hint of his method, he just turned every fragment over power piece by piece. Talking wasn't worth anything, Shabranigdu had nothing worthwhile to say.

"Filia, let go of the net," he said.

"Are you sure?"

"I need to see through their eyes."

When she released it, they fell into the void around them. Having nothing to claw it but open to what little flow Filia had, Xelloss could connect at ease. Shabranigdu's words became worthless, he could ignore it better. Far more fascinating than his incessant threats was his raw power. Somehow closer to chaos, purer and more malleable. The borders between effective energy and mind were dim enough to drive his will through and pull out. In the dreamscape, the writhing bodies pierced open by black spikes growing from within.

Xelloss created knots and contradictions within Shabranigdu's simple mind, tearing him apart with his own fangs. How pathetic, really. Shabranigdu only had had leverage because he had more power, but now that meant nothing anymore. As an astral being Xelloss didn't need to replay memories like mortals did, but he could and he most definitely would if it hurt Shabranigdu. He drowned Shabranigdu's awareness into a sea of memories, each and every one that he'd loved. Erratic humans driven to their goals at all costs, chaos was never more beautiful than when breaking within the confines of order. New chaos, not empty old void.

Everything converged here, his fascination with intricacies, pain, manipulation's craft and sometimes even the fire and light. He could wield it in the same way as his old hobby of needling people just to refine a specific emotional flavor. Oh, admitting out loud to people that he might like anything would be mortifying, but to a dense fool like Shabranigdu who suffered from it, he could more than manage. Hmm, maybe Amelia had a good head on her shoulders in more way than one.

He trapped Shabranigdu in the body of his very first human host just to chase him through a market, then in the body of a host who'd loved too much to set him on the throne of an amusing empire, then an aristocrat who had spent his life chasing fame only for the demon to engineer his downfall. One host had killed himself, another had loved the world despite misery, another had hated it despite a better life. All those difference he pulled out and pushed back onto Shabranigdu. The more Shabranigdu lost focus, the easier it became for Xelloss to slip into the other hosts. All he had to do was imagine to be them, while Shabranigdu wrestled with being long dead hosts.

Being a priest had never meant anything in the way humans did, but like this he felt it. Priests are to be shepherds of humankind, so wasn't it befit for a devil to shepherd the humans that had been demonic? Rather than save humans from the devil, he used their legacy to tie up the devil.

Shabranigdu panicked, which fed Xelloss all the more. Any idea of retaliation never went beyond the simplest; kill his dragon, feign his liege's voice, threaten with Lucifer's name. This wasn't about raw strength anymore.

Xelloss opened his eyes to the dreamscape outside of the inmost circle. Rather than two, he looked out through dozens.

All of Shabranigdu's bodies had turned to the beasts Zelas had intended them as, but now they were only Xelloss. The missing ingredient had been the plane shaped by imagination. Had Lina kept that back on purpose, when she and Zelas had worked? Ah well, he'd find out eventually.

Shabranigdu alone was but a distorted blob of red flesh now. Xelloss was about to see what other torture he could inflict when the scenery changed.

Right, Filia was here still. If she felt guilty for what she hadn't done, using the power she gave him for torture would would incite that even more. What would he do to the world, if he wasn't under Shabranigdu's command anymore? Filia feared the worst and she wasn't all wrong. The odds he'd never again feel like murdering anyone were not worth even considering, none the least because he would rather like to torture Shabranigdu to death.

**· · · · · · ·**

She didn't have to say it, he could tell from her dream. Beyond this dark swamp lay the Kataart mountains mingled with her desert home and the ruins of her old temple, littered with bodies. Dragons, humans, elves, beastfolk, all of them pierced by those same black spikes. The scene shackled her down, because this time she'd done something that would lead to a world where he'd have so much more chances to do harm.

"It's my power now," he said to Filia. "Whatever I do with it, it is neither your choice nor responsibility. Don't you dare make me into your next Valgarv."

"You'd never fit the template, Xelloss," she said. "Don't worry, I'm not going to destabilize over this. I'm used to it."

He didn't seem convinced, but he summoned every inch of darkness to himself and let her pull him out of the dreamscapes altogether.

They woke up to near darkness. The soul gate below had become dim; Filia was short on power. There was no flow and something was wrong with the earth since they were floating.

Xelloss didn't stir until she withdrew her hand and folded his soul gate shut. Mere meters from them Shabranigdu started growing a face. They'd been noticed by the rest of the pieces.

"Well, that was interesting." The way Xelloss smirked told her it'd been more than that. "Say, miss Filia, I think it's time to leave and regroup. What do you say?"

"No need to ask on doomsday," she said. Despite everything she could smile a little. They had bested the king of demons. It was a fantasy come true that only little dragons in playtime could believe in, that their faith and willpower could stand up to someone vastly stronger than them. Even as the reality was far uglier than a child's story, it was one old belief that had come true.

"Hold onto that pride, miss Filia," Xelloss said. "You might need it because we're not gonna get further. Shabranigdu won't fall for this again and I don't know how fast I can get to the flow. But, uh, try not to be too prideful forever. It can be quite obnoxious."

"Hmm. With the low standards of my company I have, it will be such a chore not to feel better," she said; she could resist but didn't want to.

A pained rumbled drew their attention to just outside their barrier. Shabranigdu's barely humanoid face managed to look quite upset. "You are disgusting."

Xelloss wagged his finger. "Ah ah, lava pits shouldn't call kettles black."

"You can't keep this up forever, traitor!"

"You could at least _try_ to respond to with something more original," Xelloss said. "Is it any wonder I allied with a dragon? She's always exciting, for better or worse. You're just boring."

Shabranigdu grumbled more about getting them. Filia would love to prove him wrong, but she wasn't so sure yet.

First she closed the life law circle below them. She took in a deep breath and prepared for the next stage. Taking the fusion down was necessary to use her remaining power for teleportation and to let Xelloss navigate, but it would leave them vulnerable. It was tempting to stretch out the seconds, but no. All time was precious if they wanted to get to Sailoon and revive miss Lina.

The moment they dropped the fusion shield, all of Shabranigdu's power bore down. Xelloss just barely caught the onslaught by pushing out all his power into a shield, but it was less energy and more matter than before.

Filia saw only a glimpse of the gray sky before wings and beasts surrounded her. Xelloss pushed out limbs and wings as much as he could. In the process he make a mess of fur and horns and flesh himself, but he kept the semblance of animals over the eldritch thing around him.

Wind tore so hard she had difficulty breathing, when it wasn't the water tear up the pillar. While Xelloss struggled out of Shabranigdu's grip he could only do so much against that. She crawled under a wing and held onto the fur of its owner, but kept her own flow open and eyes out.

The nearest of Shabranigdu finally understood something was amiss. Xelloss almost froze when the semblance of Zelas was pushed out again.

"It's not her," Filia whispered.

"Submit to me!" the form said.

"Don't worry, miss Filia," Xelloss whispered through the wolf nearest to her. "I know how his illusions work now. It's not her or he'd be able to detach her."

His main wolf head peered down at the construct and said, "Oh, but isn't that exactly what I did? It's not my fault that you did not tell me not to eat you when I did, Shabranigdu."

"It's not enough. Join the main body." Ha. Zelas never spoke with contractions.

"I say not," he then declared with Shabranigdu's undertone. "My liege, if you are still there, please forgive me. I must command you : do not speak to me anymore and do not listen to the other pieces of Shabranigdu again."

Even if she wasn't there, this would signal Shabranigdu he was at a stalemate when it come to this piece. And indeed, Shabranigdu dropped it.

Instead, there was the voice of Lei Magnus. "Clever, she'd get to choose if she lived. Not that it will matter. The world will end whether you can like it or not."

"But we do wish to end the world, just like you? It's just that unlike you, we'd put it back together better."

Most devils could be tempted to distraction with words, Shabranigdu no different. In the moment Shabranigdu geared up to respond, Xelloss tore himself loose all the way. Spreading his wings he leaped into the sky, one blink of a massive chimeran monster before he pulled all his power close to Filia, compact in his human form.

Filia encompassed them with the last of her holy magic, just before Shabranigdu's past scorched through the air.

Only upon arrival did she realize just how astray she'd gone with the instability of the area.

There was no air, but there was a floating rock ready to collide into her.

**· · · · · · ·**

So far up the earth's atmosphere he could see nothing on the astral plane. It took him several seconds just to orient when he had no sense of direction or magical flow. When he projected, he was upside down.

Two things were of immediate note : he was far enough above the planet to see both earth and sea tear into a pitch black hole and he had lost Filia.

He speed shifted through the falling orbit debris, trying to see with both sights. More than both, actually. He could project his new bodies across more than immediate surrounding, allowing him so much more eyes. Raptor eyes were the best, he forced all of the bodies to developed those until he could cover enough ground.

She wasn't too far, floating motionless just beyond the reach of gravity. Either collision or the lack of air had knocked her out — how long had passed since they'd emerged here? How did atmosphere even work here? He should've pursued that time he'd become curious about orbit, but too late now.

Once he reached her he scooped her up, but had nowhere to take her. All of the earth was in a state of catastrophe. Seas shifted and sands cracked, even the tectonic plates moved. No country was safe.

They were far above the breathable atmosphere, but not far enough for his power to reach. Using the principles of wind magic, he summoned air to seal into a projection of his own. Like this he turned into a hollowed pyramid, which his extra bodies amassed in. Here they seemed more ghostly than when separated, he could barely tell them apart when looking over the plane only. All wolves and chimeras of other beasts on the physical plane still. He didn't know how to will them into anything else yet, but that wasn't a priority.

Central to the core was a dried out wolf large enough to fill a king's hall, suspended on nothing. It resembled Zelas a little, albeit stripped of any human hint. Bare fur covered the leathery hide, but the wings were feathers as they should be. He tried not to think about why it resembled Zelas or why he couldn't will it away. It just mattered he could put Filia down there and focus on other things.

Filia didn't breathe, but her soul hadn't left yet. There was still time.

He moved a little lower to the planet so gravity had a grip and he could focus himself better. Adjusting the air pressure required more, which he had to summon.

Filia had made it more than clear that she didn't like being touched without permission, let alone when asleep when wings were involved. Sure, the planet went boom so there wasn't much option, but Xelloss was nothing if not practical. He pulled a cloth from his satchel subspace, a blanket he used sometimes used for picnics or pretended he needed protection against cold. This he spread out on the wing before laying Filia down, making sure none of the feathers outright touched her.

Filia still didn't breathe, but she stirred her arms a little. Then without warning, she contracted and her eyes shot open. She tried inhaling, but only garbled sounds came out.

"What's wrong?"

She tried to speak, but could only sputter and gasp. A spike of panic flared out, but she quickly closed her hands around her throat and tried healing. At the end of her power she didn't have enough, so she released the hell gem and forced some power out of it with one hand. It wasn't much, but enough. Xelloss relaxed along with her.

"A-are we- Are we out?" she stammered.

"Yes. You can rest," he said. "I have control of my new power and we're more or less safe here, for now."

"I don't ..."

"Shabranigdu's slow, there's time," he said, pointing a finger up. "Really, won't you be more use—better at saving the world if you're well?"

He didn't need to convince her further, she slipped away on her own. Or maybe exactly because there was nothing immediate to worry about. It was common enough that people collapsed the moment immediate danger was over, so he hoped it was that and not worse. He didn't really know what happened to dragons once their magic was drained entirely.

Only able to wait now, it left him alone with the realization of the ending world and no way to shut his eyes to it. Even if he blinded himself on the physical plane, he could see the astral world with increasing clarity. All the muck was sucked in, revealed the exodus of all life. Spirits of nature, souls not yet hellbound and demons alike were drawn to chaos. Soon, he would be forced to join them.

He could never again say that the way the Lord of Nightmares had changed him didn't matter. Right now it was the worst he could be : aware of the Void and terrified to the core. He felt he might flee, regardless of Her Will, if It came too close. To think he'd have to put effort into bowing before Her.

Zelas might as well be dead already. If she was truly a traitor to the Lord of Nightmares, that shouldn't matter. What was he if he didn't follow her? He'd never been made to lead and there was no more world to lead in.

He could only reach one conclusion : he would much rather not be in a philosophical mindset.

So Xelloss stayed where he was and let his new power fall into to handling this much raw energy. He made sense of himself by projecting through the flock. The bodies retained the forms that Zelas had given them, but he could will them into others as easily as his own.

Perhaps more easily, actually. The flock contained basic knowledge of various forms. Cats were included in each and every one of them. Xelloss became a little self conscious of his jarringly simple truest form. Why had his lord and creator brought him into the world like that?

Claire had entertained the idea Zelas might've made him for killing Shabranigdu, but Xelloss wasn't so sure.

Thinking about Zelas was inescapable. He could withdraw and reshape any of his new bodies, but the corpse of Zelas stayed as it was.

The thought of Zelas's rebellion lingered. Now he'd tried empathizing with her, if only once, a chain of thoughts followed up. There was a difference between what he knew and what he understood. Xelloss knew plenty; hoarding eccentric facts and details was his version of Filia's obsession with antique ceramics. He understood not as much as he had assumed. Zelas had instilled in him that this was the right way to take, they weren't truly rebelling. This was creed to him, but perhaps it had been mere coping for her. He knew what that was and even that it made people easier to manipulate, but that wasn't the same as understanding.

Less familiar was this new form, so strange to move with. The moment he wanted to do something, several of the other bodies moved and even collided, like he'd just gained all these extra limbs. It wasn't unlike the first time he'd tried walking in human form, but at the same time stranger. So much conflicting sensations even here. He forced them to focus, but that only had every eye settle on Zelas's shadow. It was that or the end of the world.

It was too late to ask Zelas now, and he wasn't sure what to ask anyway. Xelloss didn't fear the way organic creatures did, but he began to understand what fear about and for others was. Filia had lived her life like that, Xelloss could manage too, should there be a life left to life. And if this was the last time he would think, it could have been spent worse.

It could also be better.

His human and cone body was the one he felt most at home in, his core so to say. This one he shifted away to lower in the pyramid, where he held the remnant of Shabranigdu.

While Xelloss had more power than ever before, it wouldn't hurt to feed. Volphied was still out there and he might soon have to reincarnate Lina Inverse. Anything could help.

Shabranigdu was but a tiny red flame left, which pushed little more than a meter wide blob out onto the physical plane. It bore resemblance to the Raugnut Rushavna, albeit with a little more awareness. Good, because torturing lesser demons didn't give as much as say, the demon king. How much humiliation and hatred could he wring out of him? Emotional energy wasn't limited by how strong or weak the feeler was, it's just that the best came from sapient beings.

Xelloss appeared before him in his human form, looking down.

"Don't you think you'd want to try take the others of me too?" Shabranigdu said.

"Oh please. You honestly think that after I have come so far, such a basic temptation would change my mind? Don't insult me, I know my limits." He set his staff on Shabranigdu's shoulder and leaned on it. "In fact, isn't it my turn to play butcher? Let's start simple : the law of the strong lost because we took you down by being smart instead and guess what? We have more plans. You can't end the world because the Lord of Nightmares created us in such a way that we change. I am the answer and the outcome as much as you would have been, if you had won."

"We'll win! You're just a flaw!"

"That's the best you have? How boring." He pushed the staff through Shabranigdu. "No wonder I'll be the last devil standing. You just don't _learn_ , let alone adapt."

"And where did adapting get you?"

"Why, here of course!"

"You are more a human than a devil now. You shouldn't regret like you do, let alone worry for anyone!"

"I am a devil all the way. Humans do not have providence to that alone." Xelloss set twisted his staff a little, causing just enough pain to make talking harder for his victim. "I _should_ because either make me more careful and, well ... I'm alive because that's what happens when people care for others. I know, this sounds terribly mushy, but that's the point. I find that if I do it in my own flavor, I can emulate a kind of spiritual attack curtsy of the very princess of justice. You know Sailoon, right? It's a saccharine hell, but quite educative. "

He started peeling off the outer layer of Shabranigdu's power, a last remnant of what held him together. Once this was gone, he had no more ability to even move. That part of his mind would simply be gone, making him almost entirely dependent on Xelloss just to stay in one piece. Xelloss could easily kill him, but he wanted to see how long his hatred would last. Both for vengeance, and because this kind of pure negativity tasted quite excellent.

"Speaking of learning things, I learned pottery. It was fun and _creative_ , except when miss Filia was obnoxious. I didn't really hurt her for that, by the way, well ... not enough for you to approve," He started ticking it off on his fingers. "I also had a lovely dinner with the Knight of Siephied lately. Miss Claire, also know as the Aqualord, makes a moderately engaging philosophy conversationalist. Oh, and Siephied's alive. She's a miss now and has leveraged her curse in a most delightful way. Did you know she can just order devils to explode with mere words? She's wiped away armies and the only reason you survived is because you never met her."

"You're lying!"

Xelloss wagged his finger. "Now, now, I wasn't created that way. Or perhaps I just really integrating the idea of deceiving others without untruths. Typical devil identity stuff."

"No, you can't be that way. You were corrupted. Zelas got corrupted somehow and you were corrupted by that dragon! Don't you get it? They get inside your mind! But you can still undo it. It's just an inexperienced dragon, she can't rewrite a true devil."

"She might not get the result she wanted, but she wouldn't and hasn't. I chose to change on my own and you know what that left me? I don't need word tricks to call her friend."

"You disgrace!"

He almost missed Valgarv because he at least had a theory and goal. Shabranigdu was forever bland.

"I'm quite happy to be a disgrace to you, because you're worthless even to the Lord of Nightmares. I'm most likely not." Now he opened his eyes again. "And even if this world returns to the Sea of Chaos, there are still ways out for us. We will survive. The true Megiddo still exists and you will know existence continues."

**· · · · · · ·**

Filia couldn't tell the difference between sleep and trance anymore as she purged all the last devil energy from her soul. Of Xelloss nothing was left within, though the remnants of their neglected immortality pledge lay around her soul still. She cleaned it away too before closing her soul gate entirely.

She opened her eyes, only to doubt whether she had woken at all.

Right above her was an oversized animal skeleton, just floating in the dark. Pale light shone from whirling flames within the ribcage. After drowning in Shabranigdu, the sight inspired little more than vague curiosity.

Unlike Luna's twisted astral body, these bones were smooth and had simple markings. Near the leg joints, dried out muscle hung, but not as much as the wing joints. Those stretched out until they sprouted unmarred beige feathers all around Filia. She lay in the crook of the folded wing.

Xelloss's energy all around was strong, but she didn't see him. "Xelloss? Where are you?"

"Here." His human form flickered into view to her right, but she didn't see the cone on the astral plane. In fact, she saw nothing but astral black.

He near the edge of the wing, eyes open with a frantic gleam. Yet his voice sounded controlled. "Are you better?"

Filia tried sitting up, but it was difficult to even prop herself on her elbows. All her energy had been spent and she couldn't replenish even through the world's flow.

Where was the flow?

"Where are we? Is this a pocket space?" She looked past him, trying to see byeond the skeleton. Perhaps it was just light remnants on her eyes, but there appeared everchanging geometric shapes turning into beasts and back.

"No, this is all me," Xelloss said. "I don't know whether it's the extra power or the unique composition of miss Lina's reformation, but I can project multiple bodies now without this resulting in budding."

To demonstrate, swarms of beastly forms projected in and out of the physical world. They were asymmetric, fur, wings and teeth in sharp contrast to the smooth walls. Little rhyme nor reason existed to this space, but she began to see the overall shape of the space ... Filia laughed despite herself. The top was wide, but narrow to a point below.

"I _knew_ you had a relation to tepees."

"Pardon me, _this is a pyramid_."

"Too much cloth. Tepee."

"Pyramid!" He crossed his arms. "I have corners now."

"I bet you only have physical corners so you can deny being a tepee."

He just looked and didn't twitch.

"I can't do this," he said after a pause. "Not now."

"What's wrong?" She thought they'd won this one battle at least, couldn't that lend some cause of levity?

"You're not wondering why we're not in Sailoon, or even how long you slept?"

Right, that was odd. "Excuse me for being hazy in the head, I just hosted a demon king in my soul."

"So you did. Want to wait before I tell you what's wrong?"

"Oh get real, I can handle it," she said, sounding sure but growing fear. He was too serious.

Xelloss turned away and dangled his legs over the edge of the wing. She couldn't see his face anymore. At least, not the human one. The beasts around her were his faces too, but she couldn't read wolf faces.

Filia struggled to sit up. The wing shifted a little to make it easier, so she could look over the edge.

The wall turned glassy, revealed the cold of the night sky and ... only parts of the horizon. The _rounded_ horizon.

A river of rushing gold spun below them. One might have mistaken the motion was water, if water had more intricate shapes. Oftentimes spirals spun out of it and small stars were born and extinguished within its flow.

Chaos had a motion, after all, but only due to its impurity as it mingled with existence. The river began in many arms around space and ended in a pitch black hole. Even the surrounding starlight bent into it. On both planes it looked exactly the same, across all layers.

"W-what? Xelloss, where is the sea? Where is everything?"

He pressed his jaws together. "Gone."

"What do you mean gone?"

"You might have seen the red walls before we confronted Shabranigdu? That was the breaking of the ragnarok. Chaos took a chunk out of the planet, disrupted its orbit and ruined the atmosphere. It's been steadily getting worse while you slept. By now, life on the surface shouldn't be possible anymore."

When Filia strained her eyes against the physical light and through the shadow of Xelloss's form, the blue-white flame of Megiddo was just barely visible. It flicked out pretty quickly.

Everyone was dead.

She lost one scream, then the will to even make sound.

Everyone was dead and the world died with them. How could she save anyone if there was no planet to live on?

"See it on the on the bright side : we're not going to have to fight each other for now."

 _Everyone was dead_.

No. No way. Not acceptable. The world wasn't allowed to just end like _this_.

No matter how much she kept pushing on and on, everything only got _worse_. Valgarv was right in one thing, that the Lord of Nightmares was cruel. Whether by indifference or malice did not matter.

Xelloss ran his hand down the back of her neck, little more than a light touch over her hair.

"I'm terrified too," he said. "I have to take back what I said before, about it making no difference that She took away my instinct to end the world. I can't want it. We _have_ to find a way to live, even if it's in another world."

Let it be the end of the world that Xelloss's presence was welcome.

"Another world ... is hell still there?"

"That would depend on Megiddo, but it's not preferable. Not that we have much options."

It would have to do. As long as she had something to try, she could keep anger in place of despair. If nothing else, hell still had people who could do something. Lina, the Ancient Dragons, whatever angel still existed ...

First she had to wipe clear her eyes. She steadied her hands and pulled the hell gem from her own pocket space. It was intact, but all of the energy was gone as much as her own. She'd drawn from everything she could just to survive.

The sun still existed, shining just beyond the edge of the translucent area. Maybe, if they had time, she could regain some holy energy.

"Can you let the sun in? I think your dark magic blocks some of its natural power."

"Let me see ..." The walls shifted and somewhere from his pocket space, actual glass fell. Mostly expensive wine glasses, a fish bowl and other random things. His magic pulled it apart and mended it into a sphere that he worked into his walls. The light passing through this was stronger than anything she'd known on earth.

"That enough?"

"Yes, thank you." She was about to move over, but the wind adjusted itself so she could sat back in the crook of the wing to get the most light.

Xelloss withdrew his human projection, but his voice stayed. "If you're so at ease, does that mean you have a plan."

"Not quite, but I'm not about to be unprepared again when this shitty world throws more at me. I'm having sun for lunch, I need to figure out what I'll say to miss Luna once we free her and we're going to fix the world." Maybe she lied to herself, but that was better than despair. She had more than enough of that already, she could at least pretend. "You wouldn't happen to have any more cat books, do you?"

"Unfortunately no, but there is tea and ..." Several cat shaped drones jumped up. "Actual cats."

"That doesn't count," she said. "They're just you. I'll take the tea, though, and I'm sure you have some interesting stories about the world we're definitely going to save."

With that, she put the last notion of sacred matter to the grave and had tea with the dragon slayer while the world ended.

**· · · · · · ·**


End file.
